[gentoo-dev] Summary: Install CD Bloat thread

[Alec Berryman <alec@lorax.wox.org>]

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Install CD Bloat Thread Summary:

Kurt Lieber started off the thread:

"I've used the same installation CD for most of my gentoo installs over
the past few months, so I was shocked today when I realized that the 
smallest install ISO that we currently offer (at least for x86) is
80MB.  When I started with Gentoo, it was ~15MB.  

What brought about the nearly six-fold increase in size for our basic
installation CD?"

The first culprit pointed out was vim.  Many said that they would not
need vim, or even vi, to edit their /etc/make.conf.  Others said that
because vi was a UNIX/Linux/POSIX.2 standard, it needed to be on the
CD.  Although no compromise was reached, it was generally agreed that
vim should be replaced by a smaller vi clone, perhaps nvi (the standard
BSD vi) or vi itself.  Aron Griffis pleaded that no substandard vi
clones be considered.  Several people asked that no tools duplicate
functionality, such as nano and vim.  The thread degeneraged quickly.

Another culprit for the increase was the inclusion of Perl 5.  No one
could figure out a good reason for it to be on there.

Sven Vermeulen asked if links would be kept or replaced with lynx. 
While lynx is smaller, it does not display tables or frames.  Links is
more difficult to configure with a proxy.  Stewart Honsberger suggested
that lynx go on the minimal cd (see below), while lynx go on the larger
CDs.

Stuart Herbert suggested the use of cloop, which should be in portage in
less than a week.

Chris proposed three CD sets: an minimal install CD with a stage1
tarball, a large LiveCD with common UNIX tools and a GUI, as well as a
full GRP CD.  Luke-Jr replied that the new InGen LiveCDs would fit as
the "large LiveCD", but thought that there would not be enough space to
also use that as a base for the full GRP CD.  Stuart Herbert and others
asked for the minimal install CD to be less than 55MB in order to fit on
keychain USB devices.  Others wanted the minimal install CD to size down
to the original 16MB.  Another idea was for each user to generate his
own custom LiveCD through a set of scripts.

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