reducing distribution CD count

[jeff]

Eric Warnke wrote:
> All this talk and not much action on the reduction in CD
> count.
>
> I did some poking and proding of FC3 to see what we could get
> it down to.  I discovered that base had a bad dependancy
> issue that cuased much more to be pulled into a base install
> than was necessary becase kdebindings was claiming ownership
> of /usr/lib/python2.3.  Once I started using base+updates
> everything sorted itself out nicely.
>
> Basicly I require 115mb of RPM's ( decompressed ~250mb in
> about 45 seconds ) in order to bootstrap a system up to the
> point where yum becomes usable.  I then copy resolv.conf and
> chroot into the system.  I can then run yum install [package]
> without problem.  It turned out to be much easier than I
> expected and I'm thinking of continuing to use this process
> moving forward to build a simple yum based net install system
> in house.  I figure I can modify the rescue cd to accomplish
> this task, possibly having enough room to also add a basic
> gnome install.
>
> I think some of the scripts were failing because of some
> undeclared dependancies on files that need to be created by
> an installer, specifically /etc/fstab, so if someone has
> documentation on bootstrapping a Fedora based system that
> would be helpful.

I made an installable fc3 version down to 95 megs of RPMs for a 
total ISO size of 288M (*.img are bigger than needed and could 
be reduced too).

Peek here:
ftp://ftp.blagblagblag.org/pub/BLAG/contrib/minifc3/

-Jeff