Ubuntu - Still only one CD!

[musther]

I think it's great that Ubuntu is crammed onto one CD, and crammed surely must be the word, there's so much in so little space. Somebody recently said to me 'how can Ubuntu be as good as the other distros like SuSE when it's only on one CD and they're on a whole stack or a DVD, it must leave loads of stuff out'. So I thought about it, and although there are a lot of things that distros like Mandriva and SuSE include that Ubuntu doesn't, I'm happy to consider a lot of them duplications or bloat. But it got me to thinking, every version of Ubuntu gets better, extra features and more hardware support, and as it does, surely the amount of code required must increase, so the distro as a whole must get larger. But every time a release comes out it still fits onto an 800mb CD.

So I'm wondering, how long until Ubuntu doesn't fit onto one CD any more? Are there any plans to move to two CD's, or to a DVD?

[darkninja]

I don't think it's that bad (yet) as Ubuntu only selects the best of each kind of program, where other distros tend to select a million and one different text editors/image viewers/web browsers.

Still, despite that I think it is starting to getting a little tight. Perhaps in a few years when DVDs are more commonplace they might be an option?

[LMP900]

I also thought about this some time ago. Downloading one ISO that fits on a CD-R is very convenient, and I hope they stick with this for a while. I do know, however, that they will eventually have to move to a multiple CD or DVD method of installation.

But I concluded that, by the time Ubuntu moves in this direction, more people will have a broadband connection, DVD burners, etc. so it may not even be an issue in the near future.

[Shay Stephens]

I like it kept to one cd. All you need for a base system can fit just fine. I would vote to keep it that way for as long as possible.

It's easy to succumb to system bloat. By keeping the belt tight, you make smarter decisions in the long run.

Keep it lean baby!

[argie]

I think it's very important to keep it on one CD. DVDs aren't commonplace in most developing countries, where Linux has a better chance than elsewhere (cost-wise, maintenance-wise).

[Peepsalot]

Well, there already are DVD ISOs for Ubuntu. But I still think that single CD should be the standard. You can fit a lot in a 700mb if you are smart about it. So put the most commonly used things on it, and if you really need another program, well you can download it.

By the way, this did get me thinking... what percentage of the CD is in some compressed form like gz or 7z? I have found very good results from compressing various files with 7zip on best compression settings. Maybe even more could be crammed on those discs (if need be) by compressing the majority of the data as efficiently as possible.

[anaconda]

Perhaps in a few years when DVDs are more commonplace they might be an option?

I think they already are. For example here (finland) 1 DVD-R costs about 35c and 1 CD-R costs about 80c .. which would you buy?

It is good that ubuntu comes in 1 CD, it means less bloat than in some other distros...

(PS. DVD-R costs 35c if ordered from estonia (free shipping) and the 80c CD-R is bougth from finland (CD:s dont have free shipping) .. )

[Old Pink]

There's nothing stopping you buying the DVD edition, if you want all the included software...
http://www.amazon.com/Ubuntu-6-06-LTS-Jewel-Case/dp/B000G62IDU/sr=8-1/qid=1163059522/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-3374438-5576126?ie=UTF8&s=software

[Tux Aubrey]

I hope they keep it small and uncomplicated. I tried the new Knoppix Live DVD and it is so full of packages the cascading menus fill the screen. A bit scary for a noob.

[Krakatos]

I'll go partly against the flow. I hope they enlarge it IF they allow you to choose what to install during installation...

[ago]

Ops I voted yes by mistake reading just the thread title. I meant NO.

In fact I would love to see that shrink even more... To almost zero...

I think that on top of the ISO we should also have executable installer based on debootstrap, both for Linux and Windows. If I have Linux and a spare partition where I want a clean installation, there is technically no need for the ISO. I have used debootstrap in the past, but I do not see why a version of the installer could not be based on it. With windows it is slightly more complicated since you need to install grub for windows and restart into a Linux initrd to perform the actual installation (see instlux) or install Ubuntu within an image file in ntfs/fat.

[davec64]

Best to stay on one CD.

With a quality packet manager GUI like Synaptic (for those new to it), and a host of repositories, why stick everything on the CD?

I appreciate not everyone has a decent speed connection to the net, but thoase I now in that situation are quite happy to let the thing run over night to get that piece of software they want!

[Kateikyoushi]

No, out of the box it is already functional has most apps what an average Joe needs, if you miss something then install it from the net or get the dvd.
I bet there are plenty of places in the world where downloading a dvd iso might take a week.

[Christmas]

For the moment one CD is perfect. Maybe in 1 year or 2 it could migrate to using 2-4 CDs for a complete installation. I think the DVD is available right now, but many people only have a DVD-ROM not a DVD Writer, and in some countries it's not that cheap to buy a writer. Better yet, 1 CD now, DVD in the future but also with the CD ISOs alternative.

[beercz]

1 CD for me - I like network installs anyway.

[mips]

It would be nice if you could have a choice between CD & DVD. Just like Knoppix of which I'm busy downloading the v5 cd now.

I don't download DVDs as it will consume more than my monthly bandwidth.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I likie the single live CD idea of ubuntu, however if Canonical offered a non-free "extras" disk that included support for MP3, DVD's and other proprietary suff I would gladly buy it

[Stealth]

One of the main reasons I turned to Ubuntu back in the Warty days was because of it's Single CDness...

Although, I wouldn't mind (and I'm sure others would love it) if they had a package CD with a bunch of extras from the repos, for those on dial-up or something. But just as a side thing, Ubuntu and its main install stays on one CD.

[Nonno Bassotto]

I definitely like Ubuntu staying on a single CD. Multiple CDs is not a problem (a DVD would be a problem for me, since my drive doesn't read them anymore), but I simply don't want the standard ubuntu-desktop to require more.

The fact is that we cannot uninstall the standard apps (we can, but every six months we need to reinstall them, so it is not worth the pain), so the less apps are installed by default, the better. Otherwise our desktops will reaaaaally become bloated.

[madmetal]

1 CD for me - I like network installs anyway.

;)
one cd!

[EdThaSlayer]

When DVD's actually become popular in developing nations. Then they might use it, but for now, I like the idea of CD-R's since I myself don't have a DVD burner.

[MedivhX]

I think that maybe it won't be next year, but if it doesn't get bigger, Ubuntu will be crap...

[bigjimlad]

I think they should include much more software, and put it all on a floppy

[MedivhX]

LOL!!! Floppy!!! LOL!!!

[atari_]

voted for one disc.

actually network install CD's would be nice.. or floppy :P
or I'm not even sure if that would be possible, but would be kind of nice to have one universal network install CD that would work for all versions of Ubuntu, so instead of downloading and burning a new disc for every new release (of course there are RW discs but still :P) you could just boot from that one and install via network, only downloading the stuff you need.
I guess you could do a net install using some random live Linux, but for a complere noob, thats a bit too much..

[coder_]

No! Keep it at least moderately minimal!

I don't want it bloated (Like Windows: a whole lot of programs giving you a whole lot of nothing).

[glotz]

It won't bother me a bit if they offer a 16 DVD version too, as long as there will be the one CD option.

Different situations call for different approaches obviously.

[Cyvros]

I think that, eventually, it will get to be DVD-sized, but I hope that, by that time, broadband speeds (at least in Australia) will be phenomenally and ridiculously fast and that DVDs will be incredibly common-place.

I agree with Krakatos that, if there's a DVD, there should be options for what's installed. I remember reading a thread (might've been here, in fact) where someone suggested losing all the separate distros (Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu) and unifying it into a single DVD with a choice for your desktop environment. I wouldn't mind that.

[studiesrule]

I think 1 cd is all thats needed, to get a GUI up and running, the most basic tools. Then you can start to customise your pacakge well. But then again it might put off beginners who'd like to see whats there at all. I guess maybe there could be two cd's one is the base install, the other is a packages cd.

[gh0st]

It won't bother me a bit if they offer a 16 DVD version too, as long as there will be the one CD option.

Different situations call for different approaches obviously.

Yeah I think you're spot on there. We should keep our options open. Why not keep a slim version on 1 CD-r and then have other larger versions and let people choose.

Personally I love the single CD-R format, it downloads in a couple of hours and it installs like lightning. I used to use Mandriva and that comes on a DVD but the main reason is cos they have so much extra stuff on there: Full KDE and Gnome, Compiz, all the office apps, more versions of apps than you could ever want. I installed everything but I only used Firefox, Azureus, Amarok and VLC for almost everything. It also took ages to install and I wasted a lot of time going through selecting the packages I wanted.

The Ubuntu install is much quicker and cleaner, you can usually just download whatever else you need. When I install more software in Mandriva it more often than not asks for the DVD, thats why it's so big I reckon. Too much bloat like Windows.

I realise other people may like this and thats cool but give us the choice I say ;)

[djsroknrol]

I think they should go back to the old 2 disc way they had in Breezy....Try it and if it works ok, reboot with the second disc...

[derby007]

DVD for me, more choice, more programs, especially if the PC isn't connected to the internet.