Debian On DVD

jwest writes "LCS now has Debian GNU/Linux 'woody' on DVD-R We were just tired of shucking around the 6 CD/ROM's it takes to do a new installation with woody. One DVD that can be read on a common place DVD reader seemed like its time had come. More info." Debian unstable, for the adventurous with a DVD-drive. Update: 10/25 23:14 GMT by T : Sorry, that's "testing." Just ... testing.

Im waiting for..

The Widescreen DTS edition of Debian Does Dallas/b?

Wow,

That's one big woody!

free?

Seems like an awesome idea. Any idea on cost?

Cool feature but..

Can we get Woody to stable now?

Don't make me beg.

Good!

No more messing around with multiple CDs!

I suppose this has little direct bearing on other wares, but I also suppose that others will follow suit. I would love to be able - just once - to install Microsoft Office Professional, or Visual Studio, or any other suite of several CDs from just one disc.

Of course, as the DVD-ROM slowly becomes the software standard for such massive space requirements, I don't think that will a problem. In the meantime, how are DVDR drives' prices doing?

Isn't woody testing now?

I think that Woody is considered the 'testing' distribution now, not 'unstable'. As a big Woody user, I have found it to be plenty stable.

Huh, huh... big woody user... huh, huh-huh...

SuSE has done this for a while...

and installing one DVD is a lot less "sitting in front of the computer changing disks" of a hassle. Only problem is: what if you have multiple machines, some of which only have a CD drive, with others having both? I know SuSE, at least with Professionl, give you both. Call me a SuSE fanboy, but I am.

psxndc

NOT Debian unstable!

Debian unstable, for the adventurous with a DVD-drive.

"woody" is the debian "testing" version, not the debian "unstable". Debian's "unstable" is AKA "sid". Still cool, though.

Now I wish I either had a laptop w/ a DVD drive, or could find a decent SCSI DVD drive for my home system, since IDE sucks so bad.

still not where it needs to be for me

the dvd-distro is innovative, but i'd be more interested if there was a change in how the installation process was handled - right now, it feels out-of-date and is rather frustrating.

no, i'm not complaining about the install system itself; it's not pretty, but it's stable and powerful. i'd *really* like to see support for installing onto HPT370 RAID partitions (and other IDE RAID chipsets on modern motherboards), though. as of 2.4.10, there has been support for these devices, but as of now the only real way to get an install done is to make a custom 2.4.10 boot floppy, mount and bootstrap onto the devices, and go from there.

rant, rant. lots of love to debian, nonetheless.

Just like Mandrake....

...which has 7 of its 9 (heh, 7of9) CDs available on DVD in it's ProSuite Edition - http://www.mandrakeforum.org/article.php?sid=1329 [mandrakeforum.org]

DVDs are replacing CDs for other OSs also

On June 29th, FreeBSD Services Ltd. announced release of a bootable DVD containing FreeBSD [slashdot.org]. You can buy the 9GB DVD at http://www.freebsd-services.com/ [freebsd-services.com]. There has also been some discussion of selling a FreeBSD DVD at FreeBSD Mall [openresources.com]. A Japan retailer is offering NetBSD on DVD [plathome.co.jp]. When will OpenBSD follow? I expect there will be difficulties, as Theo copyrighted the CD layout - that's why you won't find it on Linuxiso.org [linuxiso.org]. That's too bad, as an OpenBSD DVD would be quite convenient.

Mandrake 8.1...

http://www.mandrakestore.com/en/storemdkinc-8.1.ph p

Mandrake 8.1 is (will be?) available on DVD-ROM as well - it's $60 USD - $50 for the DVD, $10 for shipping/handling/contribution to Open Source (that's novel) - and that's instead of 7 CD's.

If Mandrake releases the Gaming Edition with that WineX wrapper on DVD, that would be really good. You could fit more than the Sims on that :)

keep it small

what happen to the good old days when you can run a decent OS just with a few floppies? Remember how 650 megs was all you even needed? ( at least for a linux distro)? Guess not

What should I do?

I have never tried Debian, but it is on my list for "next install" (I currently run SuSE). I figure that by the time I do go to my "next install", that DVDs will be pretty much standard across the board for both OS installs and other software (regardless of OS). It is rapidly going that route.

However, I am a "conciensious (sp?) objector" to the tight fist of the MPAA - buying a DVD drive will give them their "fee", because said drive will most certainly include software for movie playing (though it will be for that other OS), which will have a licence fee attached to it.

If I could just by the drive, and only the drive - then I might consider it - but I still don't know if the MPAA doesn't have their hand still in the cookie jar somewhere.

Do I need to just bite the bullet, and throw my moral and political objections out the window? I don't think I can do that! I suppose I could buy the drive, then donate $50.00 or so to the EFF... I would rather not have any money whatsoever go to the MPAA...

I suppose I could just not buy Debian (or any other distro on DVD) - ideas or suggestions, anybody?

With Debian ..

it is better to just do a net install for so many reasons. In particular if you are going to track Woody. How long ago did they pull the image for this? Just go here (http://markybobdeb.sourceforge.net/elf/) get the netinst image, burn it, install, then apt-get to update everything.

Is woody ready for production server?

I only need a few things: Open SSH, Apache, Python, PostgreSQL, Exim, Bind. Right now I can't use potato since I seem to be having a socket problem with Python 2.1 on Potato which goes away if I use a new version of RedHat ... so I figure it's the kernel 2.2 or an older glibc... is this good logic?

Better yet....

How about that floppy disk netinstall? It only takes 2 1.44 meg disks, and you can install whichever version you want (stable, testing, or unstable)! We don't need no stinkin' newfangled DVD thingeys!

But it's still just a snapshot....

I love Debian and use it on all of my boxes (including laptop), but question the point of buying a DVD snapshot of a testing distribution. Woody is updated on a daily basis and any machine installed from DVD would be obsolete almost immediately. The DVD wouldn't save much time or effort because you'd end up replacing a majority of the packages via internet by the time Woody hits "stable". Better to wait for a stable DVD and then just download the security fixes.

DVD != bloat

Have been using Suse for almost as long as I have used Linux - 6 years Linux, and SuSE since SuSE 5.1

SuSe has offered DVD for ages, but we already know that. My real point is that DVD != bloat. SuSe offers a number of install options. The default (KDE with Office) installs in less than 1 Gig, where as their "bare minimum" installs in about 100M. Even then they need things like perl (used in the configuration of SuSE).

Basicall, SuSE comes on 7 cd's and 1 DVD which is just a merge of the CD's. I like the DVD because drive space is cheap, and I cp -a the dvd and then install via FTP for all my machines.

But then, SuSE is a bigger thing outside of the US, so not so much media time is given to the product, which in my opinion, offers much greater things than Redhat.

gus

Installing Linux software.

I just saw @Slashdot that Debian Woody has now a DVD distro in order to avoid cdrom replacement in installation and came to my mind: Wouldn't it be great if the packaging in Linux was similar to FreeBSD ? Do we like to check for dependencies each time we upgrade to a new version of an app we like ? I know I don't and I sure would like more download time if packages came with all dependencies already.

Dvd prices (drives and media)

Since everybody is going to ask this anyways, and other will speculate, i thought i'd make a nice list for everybody.

All prices are from pricewatch.

dvdrom drives:
(ide or eide) - 16x for $42, 12x for $39, 10x for $35

dvdram drives:
(scsi) - 5.2GB for $189 (creative), 5.2GB for $249 (toshiba), (single/double sided) - 4.7GB/9.4GB for $468 (panasonic)
(ide) - 4.7GB/9.4GB for $440 (ibm)

dvdram media - 1 for $11 (smart & friendly)
dvd-r media - 1 for $8 (pioneer)
Couldn't find dvd-r drive on pricewatch.
Sorry, looks like they are still expensive.

Hope this helps.

Old concepts on new media...

I don't want to go deep into history, but not that long ago several floppies installations have been replaced by single CDs.

Now we are actually doing the same thing with different media. I don't like that, to be honest.

Network installation is much more interesting idea, IMHO. It's just that one should remove all possibilities of "network unreachable" and increase bandwidth per unit of money :)

Mandrake makes DVD too

Mandrake 8.1 is available on DVD too. Suse has been doing it forever. A particularly cool thing about DVD installs is that DVD drives have much higher transfer rate than CD-ROMS, so not only do you not have to waste time keeping track of cds and shuffling them in and out, but also the read itself is going faster.

dvd?

hell.. last time I installed debian i used 2 floppies and copied another 7 floppies worth of stuff off an fat32 partition.. who needs 6 cd's or a dvd or whatever when you got broadband..

The ultimate irony..

if hidden somewhere on the DVD was DeCSS, ripper/player software (and maybe DRM removal software...salt+wound, rub).

Debian is a German Distro, correct... could be possible as a) our legislation does not affect them (I think) and b) DeCSS was originally generated in Germany (remember Jon Johanssen was the "distributor" of sorts, he said (IIRC) it came from a "German IRC" chat/hacker aquaintence of his).

I've tried an older version (5.x era) of debian and I was impressed.

Down side to using it was my campus was mainly RedHat. Heh, and I'm a Slackware boy from a while back.

Two lovely quotes about Slack:
on /. " Slackware: when you know what you are doing"
and
From a "linux shootout" article I read a while back that gave me a chuckle "Slackware is not for everyone, the learning curve is steeper than other Distros, but is best suited for those people who never had enough toys to play with as children" .... Heh, explains a lot about me... (G).

Unix in general: "Unix is user friendly, it is just pickier about its friends".

I'll shut up before I stray off topic.

No reason an OS needs 6 CDs

Is there a good reason debian doesn't fit on one cd? I mean you can tell me its all the included open source, but text files compress really well!What exactly is on these 6 CDs?
Even bloated evil windows is ONE CD!
Am I dumb, or what?

Debian Testing Locales Package

I heard a rumour from another Debian fanatic that the testing version of the locales package had been broken.

If true, did it get fixed??

why use a dvd? just setup a package mirror

apt-get install apt-move

setup apt-move.conf, and then maintain a package mirron on one box, and keep it updated. Then all your other boxes can reference the local mirror instead of the normal ones in its sources.list

a full unstable mirror was only about 4 gigs while i was maintaining one myself.

DVD? Out of curiousity...

If this were Windows, wouldn't we see about 300 posts complaining about bloat?

Pray-tell, what is there that a full DVD is needed for??!?!?

Do many people actually install from CD?

Everybody I know installs a base system from CD and then uses apt to bring it up to the latest version.

Users who refuse to buy DVD ware?

Ok, sounds like a good idea to be able to have everything on one disc. Now, what would happen to those people who stick to their principle, and refuse to buy DVD wares because of this stupid regional encryption scheme?

I don't mind having my debian on multiple CDs, but I refuse to buy any DVD wares. Give me my debian on normal CDs!

Whats the point?

What is the point in putting debian on a dvd when there is such an awesome packaging system? Why in the hell would you want to install 200 packages, only to apt-get upgrade and download those same 200 packages again? Debian on a deskette or one of those mini business card cd's is what we need, not dvds.

Bootable?

Is this DVD bootable? Last time I checked the Woody boot floopies where still a major stumbling block on the road to a stable release. I just finnished installing Debian Unstable (sid) on my laptop by installing a base debian potato system from floppies and then upgrading to unstable.

I was wondering if this DVD used a similar system or has a workable version of the woody boot floppies included.

http://dvdimage.debian.org/

So, when will we have that one..?

I'm sorry

but it doesn't take 6 CD-s to install Debian Woody.
You need the boot floppies and an ftp/http mirror.
What's the point in having thousands of packages you will never install, and are already obsolete at the time of the release on DVD ?
Yet another non-story on Slashdot.

Woody CD ISOs

But where, then, can I get ISO images for Woody CD's (not dvds)? I recently installed red hat 7.2 (over potato), and it seems to be a bit too "minimalistic" for my needs.

How Jim did it...

Jim posted [debian.org] details of how he mastered the DVD-Rs under Linux on the debian-cd; however, the interesting part is:

Burning the DVD-R is another story. [e-mail] is
making noises about making cdrecord (pro) a "for-profit" piece
of software, and has not released the code that
will actually burn a DVD-R......but that is another story.

Can anyone else confirm this information?

How is this newsworthy ?

Sorry, but I just cannot see how the distribution media really is newsworthy. Who cares ? At best it saves an admin a few CD changes, but as most people probably realize a standard install of the average distro only needs the first (sometimes the second) CD; especially if you are installing a server without all the application junk. More advanced users who have to install a bunch of boxes are almost certainly doing unattended network installs, and these are the people who would most benefit from saving a few media changes - except they don't have to change any media anyways ! Finally, I don't know what sort of servers most people find themselves administering but I can't think of any at our company that feature DVD drives.

Debian (logo) has a life of its own

Has anyone else noticed that if you look at a large [debian.org] version of the Debian logo it appears to have a life of its own. (Probably reflects the actual distribution.)

You have to move your eyes around a little. If you have a very high resolution monitor you can try looking at the reversed version for T-shirts [debian.org] or print it out onto a T-shirt (or buy one).

FreeBSD Press

This month's FreeBSD Press [mycom.co.jp] has the usually 4-6 CD-ROM set of packages on DVD ROM. It looks like more and more magazines in Japan are moving toward DVD.

Re:Code Bloat

Windows: 1CD
Office: 2CDs
Compilers (from Visual Studio): 1CD
Service packs: (equivilent of) 1CD
download all the other apps you still need: (equivelent of) 2CDs

thats 7. And I still don't have a whole junkload of programming libraries.

Re:and people say windows is bloated

I bet you'd need more than 6 CDs for Windows, plus thousands of applications for it, plus source code of all of this.

Re:and people say windows is bloated

Well I imagine a complete debian distro contains every single applications or utilties you could think of for linux. You don't get much when you buy a box of windows. A plain windows installation even with a full installation, I'd say there's nothing I really want to use, or useful at all. At least you'll need a box of m$ office?

Re:Code Bloat

The kernel and all the standard packages fit easily on one CD, even with source. It's the 5000+ applications and their sources that require all that space. You can install as many or as few as you want.

windows is bare, debian has basically everything.

Windows is just a file browser and some very basic tools like notepad, media player and a few card games.

Debian is 6 cds because it everything under the sun, It would thousands of dollars and gigs of HD space to install the equivalent amount of software on a windows machine.

Re:tried to like it but couldn't

WTF? I've been using a G400 dualhead for over a year! I even got quake3 up and running at over 40fps BEFORE Xfree 4.0 came out.

Try faq's at dri.sourceforge.net, or download the mga_hal.drv from www.matrox.com. I've reinstalled woody once and with Xfree 4.0 my G400 works _out_of_the_box_!!! Barely any configuration!

Try reading the debian wikki! Go to www.debianplanet.org... still need help... well maybe you're not ready for debian or debian isn't ready for you... one of the two... Debian is deffinately an advanced Linux OS, I won't lie to you, but when you get it up and running it kicks DeadRat's but any day. Not only that but consider that Debian unstable == redhat's rawhide, and debian testing == redhat x.0... yes things will be buggy, but updates are made every day. Try again in a few days and maybe your packages will be fixed.

Re:tried to like it but couldn't

I've been using Debian with my G400 for over a year. I had no trouble at all installing it. Did you ask for help on the debian-user mailing list?

Re:and people say windows is bloated

A friend of mine claims he can trim windows down to ~75MB. It won't do anything, of course...

Re:Technically Illegal?

DeCSS is for DVD movies. DVD-ROMs aren't encrypted, and don't require DeCSS.