[Fedora-livecd-list] Re: patch review and move of livecd scm

[Jeremy Katz]

On Thu, 2007-03-08 at 16:43 -0500, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Thursday 08 March 2007 16:23:28 Greg Dekoenigsberg wrote:
> > Can somebody recapitulate the heart of the argument in, oh, a paragraph?
> 
> To multilib or not to multilib: that is the question:
> Whether 'tis noble in the project to suffer 
> the same functionality of the regular install
> upon the live CD
> Or to take away features to fit on one CD
> 
> ok enough of that.
> 
> Basically if we do an x86_64 LiveCD the question is whether or not to do 
> multilib, that is enable being able to run 32bit code/apps on the LiveCD and 
> upon the system once a user has done an install from LiveCD.  If we do 
> multilib, we get hurt some on space, and will probably have to do a LiveDVD 
> instead or drop a lot more packages.
> 
> David is of the opinion of sacrificing the feature of multilib to deliver an 
> x86_64 pure LiveCD that fits on a CD, while I'm of the opinion that we 
> shouldn't drop that feature especially as the regular install will in fact 
> install multilib stuff, while the install from LiveCD will not have any of 
> that in place.
> 
> I think there may be some other opinions, I know Jeremy seems to be in favor 
> of multilib, but he's about to be on vacation for a week+ so we may not see 
> his input.

Yeah, for x86_64 (and probably any attempt to satisfy ppc64 users[1]), I
really think that given the target of users, going over the size of a CD
and requiring the live image to be on a DVD isn't a big deal.  Our
download numbers for x86_64 clearly point to the vast majority being
DVD.  This _doesn't_ mean that we fill the DVD and require people to
download 3 gigs or whatever...  but if you have to download (say for the
sake of argument... I'll try to do a spin later today or tomorrow to get
real numbers) 850 megs on x86_64 and get the increased capability, that
really feels like a win.  Especially as if you have an x86_64, you're
far more likely to have a DVD drive (+burner) as well as more bandwidth
just based on the pure economics.  And if not, the x86 live CD is there
and will run on your hardware also, you just have a different tradeoff
of which bits of functionality you use.

Jeremy

[1] I'd argue at this point that trying to do a live CD supporting ppc64
may be silly for F7.  The lack of anyone stepping up with patches for
ppc may make any of it a moot point. :-)