And wouldn't the lack of an optical drive make it very inconvenient for Linux users to use laptops? I realize manufacturers generally don't care about us, but we mostly depend on CDs or DVDs for installing our distros. We have liveUSBs and netinstalls, but netinstalls are still more complicated and difficult (last time I looked into it), and LiveUSB technology is newer and less perfected than liveCDs.

It's not so bad anymore. Most machines work fine with USB installs. I did install my desktop via CD-rom, but that's because I wanted Debian instead of something with a newer kernel in the installation media (the hardware required newer than a 4.9 kernel to function properly). But all my laptops I've only ever used USB installs. My old desktop I only ever installed via USB. Very few distro's haven't gotten great USB live/installer working well. There's even very few distro's that don't work well with UEFI installations now (secure boot another topic and works with very few distro's, but there's good reason for that). The issues in the early days of USB installers is, generally speaking, long past and USB is extremely well supported now for installations or running live.

I've done without a spinning drive to install Debian, Slackware and Mint and nevr enbcountered a problem -- I contrast this with the unreliqbility of spinning media and fnd that I prefer integrated circuits.

Spinning media? Then when you burn a disc and find the disc to be useless, do you blame the disc? I blame the drive. Since I started regularly using laptops about three-and-a-half years ago, I've been appalled by how often the drives (both Thinkpad internal drives, and external in other brands) fail, or at least behave erratically and suspiciously, under normal use. Now that I think of it, my old desktop computer's optical drives broke semi-regularly, too. It makes me suspect optical drives must be much more breakable than the average user realized. That it goes beyond their being more fragile just because they have moving parts (like non-SSD hard drives) to their being ready to fail as soon as I look away.

"business card-sized distro"

Look into almost any optical drive and you will see two circles for two different sized optical disc's. The inner size was termed business card by some folks.

Quite a number of distros offer their version in one or two forms. One is a generic hybrid iso that can be used on usb or optical. The other would be a disk image for a usb or iso for optical.

In some cases one can fix an optical iso for use on usb.

could've been just dirt; but those computer drives are hard to clean.

what is this about? are we going somewhere with this topic, or do you just want to share some sort of general dissatisfaction about optical media?

...

fwiw, i haven't used a CD/DVD to install anything for ages - switched to USB as soon as i realised that's an option, i.e. more or less straight since i started using linux 6 years ago.

the only thing thad made/makes me use an optical every now and then is if i have to install on incredibly old hardware with gnarly BIOSes, that doesn't allow for booting from usb.
but even that can usually be circumvented with PLOP boot manager.

"Back in the day", before USB and bootable USB keys (yes, there was such a time!) we used to create these card sized CDs with system recovery tools and documentation on recovery procedures.

WOW, they are still available and in 330Mb DVD media too!!!!

https://www.retrostylemedia.co.uk/sh...iness-card-cds

Minimum Requirements for DSL with X-window
486dx or 100% compatible processor.
16mb ram (24mb recommended)
dual-speed CDROM (quad-speed or better recommended)
1.44mb floppy drive (for boot floppy, if needed)
VGA monitor and video card.
a mouse (serial, ps/2, usb)
and a higher level of computer processor.

'Puppy' is, as always, unusual amongst distros. We use an ISO geared for optical to 'install' to a USB.....because Pup is intended to 'live' on USB.....permanently! You can install to a HDD/SSD if you want, but it's never a 'full' install, always what is termed a 'frugal', since Pup runs fully in RAM, de-compressing to a virtual RAMdisk from 'read-only' files at boot.

Just my two-penn'orth to confuse the issue still further!


Mike.