Hi,

There is a breaking point for all hardware. A facility to use or create a CD will be there for versions up-to 13.37. A new user can be referenced to links that do the job! PV has questioned the continued use of the CD set because things are going to be tight for a new release.

I do agree that the world community does not have the facilities to utilize the net at the broadband speeds we have available.

A bundled set with a USB option would be good option. Even then not all users will have the abilities nor hardware to support fully. At some point PV will make the decision(s).

Onebuck:

Thanks for the update. I hope that all goes well with the team and that some of the discussion here was useful.

Tom McLean
On The Wet Coast

I'm in for a Slackware 8|16|32GB usb-key edition.

I agree with the USB key option, but from the 100 or so different machines I have installed Slackware on, or worked on for friends, I can count on one hand the number which have CD without DVD capability. So my input would be:

-DVD with separate disc for 32 and 64
-USB key
-CD (as a legacy media)

Furthermore, I would let the economics of production, and demand (orders) drive the death of CD. As long as people keep ordering them, and they can be made cost effectively, then why drop CDs? But for me, I use DVD and USB keys that I make from the DVD iso.

Thanks to all who make Slackware available!

Depending on how Slackware evolves in the next few releases and the space it will require on a DVD, it might make sense to span it on a DL image rather than multiple single layered DVDs, the only problem with DL media is their price, and burning the image onto said media could be tricky, because a -R DL disc would require L0 (first layer) to be filled up completely, where as +R DL image can have a layerbreak set at any point, plus a DL iso does not have layerbreak info, thus needing an extra file in text format usually, specifying the layerbreak.

Though cool as it may be to have a 32 and 64-bit iteration of Slackware on one entire image, perhaps it is 99.9% doubtful that there would be such an ISO and most likely just be spanned across multiple SL media.

One day DVDs will feel that way too, and then Slackware will be jumping onto Bluray, and at that point I wouldn't be surprised seeing 32 and 64-bit Slackware on the same image.

I'd buy this from the slackware store for sure!!! A usb drive with the slackware logo down the side. Bundle it with a T-shirt that promotes the current version and you make my 50 bucks ever time a new release came out ;-)

Well, we could call the bundle "BFSS": Bundle for Fanatic Sectarians of Slackware.

I would buy it :-)

I would agree dropping the CD format, provided a script is provided on the DVD image to create a bootable CD just like there is to create a USB key.

I do meet machines that only have a working CD that I can use for booting the installation media. The rest of the installation source can come from the NFS/HTTP/whatever.

@rouvas: The README in the isolinux directory already provides you with a command to make an iso. If you plan on getting the packages from NFS/HTTP/whatever then just delete slackware/ from the directory tree before you make the iso. You can also delete anything else you don't need e.g. all the sub-directories except for kernels and isolinux.

For example to make a -current mini install iso. Firstly I would fetch what I need as follows:

Then I could 'cd' into the "slackware-current/" sub-directory that was created and issue:

Or if want a stable release you can be lazy just fetch one of alienBOB's preprepared mini Slackware isos.

The mirror-slackware-current.sh script can create a mini ISO too, for Slackware-current. If you run it as
it will do a partial rsync (only syncing what is needed for a mini ISO, skipping all packages and source) create a mini ISO for you.

Run if you want to know more about the script's capabilities.

Eric

2 members found this post helpful.

@Alien Bob: Damn it, you really have thought of everything! In hindsight I should have checked the mirror-slackware-current.sh options, especially as I ended up spending a little too long thinking about wget's exclude (-X) option and how it works.

Edit: I guess my way might still be useful to those who don't have access to a fast rsync mirror (only ftp or http).

Hi,
@ruario

Another thing is to use 'mirror-slackware-current.conf' to exclude;
This is how you can trim the DVD to a convenient size or just get;
'mirror-slackware-current.sh' along with 'mirror-slackware-current.conf' provide flexibilities for the user to customize the ISO & medium.

1 members found this post helpful.

Yep mirror-slackware-current.sh is awesome. No argument from me!

I think Pat's main question was what to do for the slackware store. There are a zillion ways to get slackware onto a machine.

I think it's time to go DVD only for the store, then when that isn't enough space then use separate media for x86 and x86_64, or do what slackware 12 did and use dvd1 for the main install and put all of the x/kde stuff on DVD2. Either way works fine for me.

As far as people that need to install on older machines without a CD, just grab the mini cd boot from Eric and do the rest of it from the network or usb stick.

Regardless, what I don't want to see is slackware holding back because of space on optical media. If anything I would like to see some packages in extra that make slackware a little more mainstream such as a pam, iscsi, ldap server, postgres, or other things that are missing from slackware. Not that we all need or want these things (otherwise we would use a different distro) but there has been occasion where I needed features that were not included and ended up building them myself (or using slack builds.org.)

So basically, I don't want a pam linux with some crazy script hack for an init, but I would like to be able to add some features that I need without needing to build everything myself, and while extra does give me some of what I want, it would be great if it can be expanded. I'll even contribute.

One last thing, I would love to see support for postgres added to the standard stuff like php and perl. I don't use mysql anymore because of it's horrible error checking, lacking date support, and other oddities. Slackware is a simple yet industrial strength linux and deserves an option for a database that isn't riddled with quirks and gotchas, like only allowing static values for default data in columns (except for the timestamp hack which is a special static which returns the current time), or lacking sequence support which forces us to use auto_increment which is part of the table and again a hack.

schu

I do notice that the Slackware store is taking pre-orders for Slackware 14.0; you can order CDs or a DVD.