> What would be even easier.... > Have Novell mount the images on an FTP server. > Right? During install, I can specify the IP address of the FTP > server. > What are the problems in Novell mounting the ISO images and serving > them up?
1) Bandwidth -- who pays for transferring that many bits? Multiply n CDs times number of licensees x number of installs x number of idiots who won't set up a local repository == a LOT of bandwidth. That goes directly to the price of the distribution. 2) Reliability -- Novell doesn't control the public Internet (thank heavens). Nobody does. You have to rely on every ISP and telco between you and them to get it right and supply sufficient capacity to support bulk transfer. Would you want your revenue stream dependent on something you don't control? You could distribute images via some service like Akamai to minimize the connectivity issue, but that isn't free. 3) What happens every time they release a new Intel version -- their FTP site gets clobbered for days at a time. What happens if you desperately need to do an install during that period? You could distribute images via some service like Akamai to minimize the congestion issue, but that isn't free. > Make it a subset, if worried about abuse, that is sufficient to setup > your own FTP server and then retrieve the ISO images, and mount them for > your own "custom" install. You can already get that. Heck, *we* supply a cheap install server in CMSDDR format that works equally well for Debian or RH/SuSE. If there's interest enough for just enough of a server appliance to do installs with, and people would chip in as little as $25 to support the development and test time, we'd be happy to provide one. > I've been trying to get Novell to make their Novell SuSE distribution > available in CMSDDR format. They'd have to develop CMS skills. They're having enough problems just testing the Linux stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
