[Novalug] Is Cox blocking bittorrent?

Theodore Ruegsegger gruntly@gmail.com
Tue Feb 3 11:02:03 EST 2009


Eric wrote:
> I've always been perplexed by why people need to download a whole DVD
> and burn it to disk in order to install. Do non-Debian based distros not
> have apt* or something similar? Who really needs to install an entire
> DVD worth of software?

I'm perplexed and disappointed that I even need a CD for most distros.
Since most of us are going to upgrade from the network repositories
anyway, why install a ton of stuff you'll be replacing within the
hour? And why download all that stuff you're not going to install in
the first place?

For plain Debian I can get away with a 40MB "business card" iso to
install a basic system which I can then fill out with apt. For Ubuntu
I have no choice but to install from a CD that's filled to capacity
with already obsolete stuff. That's 700MB vs 40, and I'm still gonna
hit the repository.

Like Eric, I'm scratching my head. I don't expect my colleagues on the
list to be able to answer this, but perhaps those that work for, or
closely with, a distro producer might inquire why the "download
minimal system, install rest from net" option is mostly unavailable.
Is there some downside I'm not seeing?

Hmm...harking back to the tradition of bootstrap loaders, it seems to
me we could do even better: "download a single file that installs a
minimal system from the net, then install rest from net."

Ted



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