Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:27:27 +1000 From: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> Cc: ben@rosengart.com, Darren Reed <avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au>, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: 2.2.6 CD-ROM : Package dependencies up the creek ? Message-ID: <19980616122727.43984@welearn.com.au> In-Reply-To: <3223.897957854@time.cdrom.com>; from Jordan K. Hubbard on Mon, Jun 15, 1998 at 05:44:14PM -0700 References: <19980616095005.64408@welearn.com.au> <3223.897957854@time.cdrom.com>
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On Mon, Jun 15, 1998 at 05:44:14PM -0700, Jordan K. Hubbard wrote:
> > The only thing that really gets my goat is pretending that if it's not an
> > issue for an expert then it won't be an issue to anyone else.
>
> I don't believe I've ever taken that attitude. If I did, then you'd
> still be using shell scripts to install FreeBSD and wouldn't have a
> ports collection either since software is so easy to configure and
> compile for FreeBSD, right? :-)
Right. Why ruin that by removing packages.
> > I doubt many would want either of them. I found it very difficult to get
> > 1. advice on how much space each distribution would take to install
> > (which is not the same as final disk space)
> > 2. advice during or before installation on the size of packages, like
> > is it a few K or a few tens of megs.
> > Anything to assist here would be worthwhile.
>
> Unfortunately, like I said, this information isn't readily available
> or it would, indeed, be provided already.
OK then, no worries, it just needs documenting. I'll do it unless anyone
beats me to it.
First I'll install from a more recent CD to a too-small partition to see
what running out of space it looks like to a newbie, and if it's not real
clear what's going on, write it up.
Then I'll spend a couple of hours reading man pages to work out how to
write a one line script to list the packages on the CD and their sizes.
That can go on a web page somewhere with the caution that many packages
cause other packages to be installed, where to check for this info, what
it looks like and how to proceed if you do run out of space.
I could probably do something similar, but with more difficulty, for the
various distributions. I'd have to work out by trial and error how much
additional space they need for compiling, and say that the disk space
estimates are very rough guides only, to the nearest gig or +/- 50% or
something, but better than nothing.
Then I can direct any hardware-challenged newbies about to do their first
installation to read this info in addition to the Handbook info that
suffices for Normals.
Are there any obvious reasons why this wouldn't work? There must be some
problems that I'm too inexperienced to see, if it hasn't been done already.
If there are, I'll document them too :-)
--
Regards,
-*Sue*-
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