Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Won't Fit On a CD

gbl08ma writes "According to various sources, the ISO image size for the upcoming Long-Term Support Ubuntu version 'Precise Pangolin' will not fit on a regular CD, since the image size is expected to weigh around 750MB instead of the usual ~700MB. The idea is that users should either flash the image to a USB flash drive or burn it to a DVD. The extra room on the disc image could allow for integration of more GNOME3 components and Canonical applications. There was also a proposal to use a 1.5GB DVD image as the default download for Ubuntu 12.04."

I am gonna start my own ask slashdot thread

[ani23]

Practically speaking and forgetting every small petty argument. What would it take to make ubuntu (Or any other linux Distro) a mainstream desktop OS. (Highlight DESKTOP) If you were in charge of it or could give it direction what would you do to make it work, accepted and profitable. I am hoping this will be an interesting exercise.

Which means it won't be used for old hardware,

[lpt1]

And thus, one of the most common entry points into Linux is lost to Ubuntu.

How many of us actually installed Linux, for the first time, onto a Factory Fresh machine?

Better yet, how many of us then reinstalled windows _just_ long enough to get online and figure out why Linux wouldn't partition/install/boot?

So, keep on about "CD's are soooo last decade", but please keep in mind just how many Linux users saw the light on old hardware of the kind that might only have a CD-ROM.

Re:I am gonna start my own ask slashdot thread

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using ubuntu since version 6, now 10.04 - it took some time to get audio right on my machine (fujitsu siemens Xi2428, older laptop), but one of the things I like most about linux is that once it's configured properly, it will stay that way. It will not get slower over time, or suddenly change behavior, like windows (although the last version of windows I used is XP, and still do, in Virtualbox).

I think Ubuntu 10.04 is a very nice looking desktop OS, it just works, everytime, no surprises. It's ideal for running XP in virtualbox (where it's more at home, XP is more of an application than OS, imho), and rock stable. I honestly don't know what else should be added to it.

How about net-install?

[antdude]

I like Debian's net-install to get the latest packages since stable ISOs are usually outdated. :( Obviously, if you have fast Internet connection.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Bloat

[apharmdq]

Slackware ships on a DVD, and a full install is about 5-6 GB. But it certainly isn't bloated. It's one of the quickest and most stable distributions I've used, so I hesitate to say that adding more stuff to the Ubuntu install justifies people calling it bloated. Ubuntu's selection of software is still conservative in quantity. If anything would be blamed on bloat, it would be implementing it in such a way that it negatively affects your system's performance. So if they're adding unnecessary things to the system startup, or a lot of background processes that you don't use, then that would be bloat. (In Ubuntu's case, this has been happening, but it started long before they ever decided to ship a release that was too large for a cd.)

Bloatware

[symbolset]

The Linux kernel is only a few megabytes. The whole thing fits easily in the L2 or L3 cache of a modern server processor. That's Really Freaking Important for geeks like me who have to build stuff at scale.

I want to ignore your troll, but I can't. You raise an important issue, even if your motivations are suspect.

For 20 or 30 years we've had the meme "Intel giveth and Microsoft taketh away." That's shorthand for the fact that Microsoft operating systems grow less performant at the same rate Intel processors grow more performant, and net the progress is zero. It doesn't have to be that way any more.

Re:I haven't burned a CD in years...

[thegarbz]

Actually you're thinking of the SD card. The SD card is a simple flash memory with a toggle switch that relies on a controller a) recognises that the card has the switch flipped to read only and b) sends a signal to the OS.

USB on the other hand is not a direct link to the storage medium, and has hardware flash controllers onboard. The more expensive ones implement this properly, the cheaper ones actually hard limit the R/W line going to the chip. The cheap solution is robust but also easily visible because the OS doesn't know it's read-only. When you try writing to the drive you end up with a weird failed message.