F-13-Beta Live images are > 700Mib

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, Apr 05, 2010 at 09:47:45AM -0400, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Fri, 2010-03-26 at 17:50 -0400, Colin Walters wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 24, 2010 at 7:16 AM, James Laska <jlaska at redhat.com> wrote:
> > > Greetings,
> > >
> > > The Live images created for F-13-Beta-TC1 desktop are over 700 Mib.
> > > This means they no longer fit on a CD image.  I've read several posts
> > > noting the intent to have larger desktop live images to offer more
> > > software on the image.  I'm just looking to confirm that this is an
> > > intended behavior so we can update our test case [1].
> > >
> > > Is this due to the DesktopLiveImageTarget [2] feature that I see in the
> > > upcoming release notes [3]?
> > 
> > Ok so we have to come to some sort of clear final decision here, and
> > I'd appreciate input from stakeholders.  Let me outline the options as
> > they stand at this very moment, with some commentary on engineering
> > time that could be spent to fix issues with each one.
> > 
> > o Have two images
> >   - Advantages:
> >     * If you have a USB key, the experience is improved since it
> > includes OpenOffice.
> >   - Disadvantages:
> >     * Website is more confusing
> >     * Space/QA concerns
> >   - Engineering time could be spent on:
> >     * Website?
> > 
> > o Go back to 700MB image
> >   - Advantages:
> >     * Was previous status quo, is well understood
> >     * Honestly, it's a question in my mind for how many people it's
> > too onerous to download OpenOffice after they install if they actually
> > use it
> >   - Disadvantages:
> >     * Not quite the full experience, and has the drawback of the
> > removal of bits like NFS
> >   - Engineering time could be spent on:
> >     * Adding some code to install @gnome-desktop @office afterwards
> > via e.g. PackageKit UI
> >     * Adding "stub" .desktop files to image which install OpenOffice on demand
> > 
> > o Only use ~1G image
> >   - Advantages:
> >     * No website confusion
> >     * It's pretty complete, includes OpenOffice and NFS for example
> >   - Disadvantages:
> >     * We haven't shipped a 1G image before and the risks are not well quantified
> >     * If someone wants a CD, then they'd be fairly confused why the
> > desktop looks really different and ships a different web browser, etc.
> 
> 
> Hey Colin, thanks for summarizing the pros and cons nicely. I think at
> this point of the F13 cycle, we should probably play it safe and revert
> to using a CD sized image. It pains me a bit to say so, but we didn't
> really get the time and attention this cycle to really make the larger
> image a sufficiently better experience to justify the change.
> 
> I could see us shipping the 1GB image for usb sticks in addition to the
> CD sized image, but I think rel-eng does not like that idea very much.
> 
> All is not lost though, and I do think that we've gotten quite a bit
> done here that will help us to improve our offerings: The default
> installation that you get from the DVD is much closer to the desktop
> spin now, and the live cd is just our desired experience minus things
> that don't fit. 
> 
> Future directions for this should IMO include:
> 
> - Make it easy to 'complete the installation' after doing a live cd
> install (e.g. in the PK ui, as Colin mentioned)
> 
> - Keep pushing anaconda towards being just an application, and use a
> live installer on the DVD as well

Can I ask for someone in the Desktop crew who helped make the call to
do a short post to the Planet about it?  Ambassadors probably will
want to know from the perspective of both cost of media production
(i.e. budgeting), and in terms of discs they plan to order
locally/regionally.

I'm behind in my RSS a bit, so if this already got out there, my
apologies for being redundant. :-)

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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