[EMAIL PROTECTED] said: > I still haven't solved the problem of how to fit 5 or more Distro's > onto one CDROM. Q1: what percentage of us can use a DVD? Q2: does > anybody here know anything about the costs of authoring DVD's? Q3: If > DVD's are not an option, what would people think about the suggestion > to "Mix & Match" and "Burn your own" CD?
Drat. "quote selected text" is broken. I can read DVDs but not burn them. DVD burners are not prohibitively expensive - about twice what I paid for my first CD burner. Media aren't too expensive either, though I'd hesitate at giving them away. On Linux, authoring a DVD is the same as authoring CD - one uses the same tools in the same way. I still think a selection of tarballs, one per distro, that one can select from and download is the way to go. I envisage downloading, say, SuSE and Red Hat, then doing something like this: mkdir /tmp/multilinux tar xf RedHat.tar.bz2 --bzip2 -C /tmp/multilinux tar xf SuSE.tar.bz2 --bzip2 -C /tmp/multilinux (copy some generic stuff into /tmp/multilinux, or perhaps the generic could be in all tarballs for simplicity) mkisofs -o /tmp/combine-linux.iso /tmp/multilinux cdrecord -eject /tmp/combine-linux.iso If I have a DVD burner (or don't want to burn them at all), I can (probably) put all distributions into the package. Otherwise I make as many CDs as I need. Volker put Hercules on his MVS CD, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea as it's likely to become out-of-date before other stuff. Perhaps a script users can run prior to burning their own image. By splitting it into components in this way, it allows updating of individual components more easily - Red Hat comes out with a new release, then build a new RHL filesystem and those who want it download that component and burn a new image. Including the tools to build the package in the package would be a good move - be sure they run on the S/390 linux systems of course, so people can build their own modified filesystem incorporating the latest patches and/or their own ideas of what should be included. -- Cheers John Summerfield Microsoft's most solid OS: http://www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/ Note: mail delivered to me is deemed to be intended for me, for my disposition. ============================== If you don't like being told you're wrong, be right!
