[Coco] Fedora 6 DVD ISO

Joel Ewy jcewy at swbell.net
Mon Apr 30 01:39:39 EDT 2007


Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Sunday 29 April 2007, Joel Ewy wrote:
>   
>> Gene Heskett wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sunday 29 April 2007, Manney wrote:
>>>       
>>>> Roger Taylor wrote:
>>>>         
>>>>> Gene, I just initiated the download for Fedora 6 i386, so there's just 9
>>>>> hours and 45 minutes to go!  :)  Unless a fair use policy kicks in and
>>>>> throws me down to dialup speed for a few hours.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm sacraficing a day of network bandwidth for this download of Linux.
>>>>> Looks like around 3.3 gb, so I hope the ISO contains every stinkin'
>>>>> tool, compiler, feature, app, game, and driver, that is known to the
>>>>> Fedora gang.  :)
>>>>>           
>>>> Yikes! 3.3 Gig? Anyone know any other distro that makes you download a
>>>> DVD's worth?
>>>>
>>>> So far, I'm happy downloading a CD ISO (~700 Meg) for a Debian (Ubuntu
>>>> specifically) based install. If something is missing from the install, I
>>>> just grab (apt-get) it once the install is finished. Seems the easiest
>>>> way to go for me and I get it in 30-45 minutes. :)
>>>>
>>>> -M.
>>>>         
>>> You are aware that the full debian distro is about 28 cd's worth?
>>>       
>> But the point is that you don't have to download the full distro just to
>> do a basic install.  In fact, if you want to install Debian, all you
>> need to download is 2 (maybe 3?) floppy images to boot the installer.
>> All the rest will be downloaded during the installation process -- but
>> only as much as you actually need.  I've got nothing against RedHat and
>> Fedora, and I'm certainly not going to try to warn anybody away from
>> using it.  It's a fine distro.  I may even install some future version
>> of it again.  But if it's true that you have to download 3.3G just to be
>> able to install a basic system -- that's just lunacy.
>>     
>
> It can be done with one cd for a basic install, then get the rest from the 
> network, which does have the advantage of getting the latest stuff 
> automaticly, and the disadvantage of volatile sites or network access.
>
> The kernel and an initrd with all the drivers has not fit on a floppy in 4 or 
> 5 years, with bare kernels running close to 2 megs these days.  My own custom 
> kernel made just for my hardware is 1.49MB, and the initrd (initial ramdisk, 
> used only to load drivers from for the hardware it discovers at boot time, 
> and which is then thrown away) that goes with it so it can load drivers 
> before it actually has a disk filesystem ready to go, is 2.1 megs.  Neither 
> of those will fit on a floppy, let alone both on one.  If I turned on the 
> build for all the drivers that linux now supports, the pair would handily 
> exceed 5 megs.
>
>   
Hmm.  Well, I do have a 2 floppy network install set for i386 Debian
Sarge which, while not the most recent release, is < 5 years old, I
think.  It may be that the first floppy is all kernel and the second all
initrd.
> Either way, you'll probably use 3GB of bandwidth the first month, grabbing the 
> devel packages so you get the compiler etc.  For me that isn't a huge deal, I 
> have dsl that downloads at about 180kilobytes a second if they put it in the 
> pipe that fast on the other end.
>
>   
I also have DSL, but I really wouldn't consider installing any modern
Linux distro over anything slower unless I really had to.  Even so, if I
did, I think I would prefer to download a bunch of packages to fill out
a system than a whole ISO image.  If the connection goes down before
you're finished, you don't have to start all over from the beginning,
just begin with the first package that failed...
> Then you need a gui so you can impress the visiting frogs, kde is the best 
> IMO, and its at least 500 megs cause its got everything you need except 
> firefox.  
I really don't have very strong preferences for the desktop
environment.  KDE is good.  I tend to prefer GNOME slightly for mainly
aesthetic reasons.  But I have a lot of junk PCs and lower-end systems,
in addition to a few faster ones so both GNOME and KDE feel just a bit
bloated for many of my purposes.  XFCE-4 with Thunar file manager is
pretty darn good for systems in the High-end Pentium to Low-end Pentium
III range.  And for my Quadra 840av I've used IceWM to pretty good effect.
> Their browser can probably be used if you can get it under control, 
> but they also use it for a file manager in ways I don't grok.  Best file 
> manager is the old, two pane, midnight commander, aka mc.  File Runner is 
> also good, but its been stuck at version 2.5.1 since RH6.2 days.  Its 
> customizable somewhat along the lines of the old amiga DirWork-2, which I 
> liked a lot.
>
>   
Thunar looks and works quite a bit like Windows Exploiter, so it makes a
good transition for Microsoft refugees.  And it's much, much faster than
Nautilus.  ROX Filer is also fast and functional.  For the two-pane,
Amiga-like file manager, I've found I've enjoyed emelFM in Damn Small
Linux a lot more than I thought I would.

JCE
> I do like one thing debian/ubuntu has, they have a script called 
> build-essentials, which when run, will download and install all the includes 
> and compiler toys you'll need to be able to build 99% of their src packages 
> and install them, or build your own stuff from a tarball download.  Or write 
> and build it from scratch, which I know Roger is quite capable of.
>
>   
>> JCE
>>     
>
>   




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