A few thoughts on lunar-1.5.0-TESTING-20050517.iso

[Auke Kok]

Terry Chan wrote:
> Haven't had time to install this, but I did download it and took a quick look
> at the contents of the iso, and here are a few thoughts:
> 
> 1. Why bother to include a /var/cache/lunar/ that is populated with tar.bz2 files
> if all of those modules are already installed on the iso ?  I can see maybe
> glibc, gcc, in var/cache/ in case those modules get hosed some how.  This just
> seems to make the iso unnecessarily large.

it does make it extra large but I didn't ave the time to rewrite that 
part into something that gathers packages from two locations. I 
understand your reasoning and this can certainly be implemented (and was 
and *is* still my goal), but to me this falls under the category 
"optional". There is (apart from the extra download size) no extra 
benefit for the user. Now he has failsafe cache tarballs as well, that he 
can resurrect instantly.

> 2. Where is VIM ?  Its in /var/cache/lunar on the ISO, but is not installed in
> /usr/bin.  But there is a symlink for /usr/bin/vimdiff.

intentional. I'm trying to minimize the number of components on the 
'live' part of the ISO. Since e3 is already available and the installer 
itself calls vim (vi) on the installed target, there is no immediate need 
to include a vim binary on the live ISO as well.

the lone symlink is a module bug.

> 3. Broken symlinks in /usr/bin for: flex++, geqn, lex, size86, vimdiff, zsoelim

right-o. I'm sure there are many more, they're all harmless anyway, and 
module bugs.

> 4. Where is zile ?  We were including that on the ISO for the emacs nuts.

Can include this, will check. Someone mocked up the zile module BTW. go 
fix. ;^)

> 5. Where is bitchx, or irssi or some irc client so that users can boot the iso
> and still ask for help in text mode in #lunar ?  We used to include at least
> one irc client on the ISO.

on the installed target. I don't see a reason why this has to be 
available on the 'live' part of the ISO

> 6. Broken symlink for /sbin/rtstat

so? do you need this on the live ISO? this seems to point back to 
/sbin/lnstat, which comes from iproute2. This suggests a module bug to 
me, since the symlink should not be disowned.

> 7. Why are these directories included on the ISO: /BUILD, /.dirs,  /.etcf, /.init,
> /.kernels, /.packages, /.proper, /.rebuild, /.unpack

part of the build scheme. Some of these files are irrelevant to the 
installer itself and only remain as a footprint of the build code. BUILD 
was erratic and already removed. Some are important to the ISO and are 
required by the installer. For simplicities sake I don't remove them.

> 8. In /bin you have duplicates for gawk, and pgawk. Make the symlinks for
> gawk-3.1.4, and pgawk-3.1.4 <--- waste of space.

Then someone should fix the module instead, problems like this are too 
countless to fix manually in the ISO build code and really are module bugs.

> 9. Why are there /var/cache/ccache/ subdirs on the ISO ?

To make sure people get a properly initiated ccache and not one that by 
default grows to 987MB, which is the default ccache size and totally 
illogical. The ccache size is set to 256MB and made empty.

> 10. Broken symlinks in /usr/lib/ for libdb* (several items here), libffi.so,
> libgettextlib.so, libgettextsrc.so, libglib.so, libgmodule.so, libgthread.so.

All module bugs. striker told me he'd look if db can be removed 
alltogether since only iptools2 needs it (which to me already sounds 
strange). The other symlinks should (as all symlinks) not be orphaned at 
all and this is a module bug, nothing related to the ISO build code.

> 11. Why is there a /var/build/ directory on the ISO ?

I build the ISO in a chroot and for clarity keep the compiles outside of 
/usr/src. This makes it easy for me to keep a set of kernel sources in 
the chroot but distinguish the module compiles easiy. The remaining empty 
directory can be removed but again, it's only cosmetic.

> 12. Why isn't rsync included on the ISO in /usr/bin ?  This tool is the basis for
> install Lunar over a network mounted ISO.

There is no network installation yet, and moving this to the ISO from the 
cache tarball is a matter of adjusting 2 lines of build code, as it 
already is present on the install target. However indeed this is a nice 
thing to have on a live ISO as well, so I'll probably move it.