About due for a new ISO?

CPUnltd · 2011-04-28 05:38:44

First and foremost, I get that we are a rolling release... I take no issue with that... but for those who install via the ISOs provided, there are now a lot of extras to the process (that aren't documented on the wiki or anything like that... granted they shouldn't be with the release of a new ISO to cover the extra steps) that can be a pain in the long run.

I'm sure it's already in the mix and probably soon to be released, but I just wanna stir the pot a little to find out if it is or am I just stuck with updating 3 times before I get to install any actual software (sarcastic, but not meant to be rude)...

wankel · 2011-04-28 05:55:56

CPUnltd wrote:

First and foremost, I get that we are a rolling release... I take no issue with that... but for those who install via the ISOs provided, there are now a lot of extras to the process (that aren't documented on the wiki or anything like that... granted they shouldn't be with the release of a new ISO to cover the extra steps) that can be a pain in the long run.
I'm sure it's already in the mix and probably soon to be released, but I just wanna stir the pot a little to find out if it is or am I just stuck with updating 3 times before I get to install any actual software (sarcastic, but not meant to be rude)...

new iso is currently in testing and should be out in another month or two.

ngoonee · 2011-04-28 05:56:04

I believe (based on what I've read before) that its a manpower issue. Besides, there's unofficial ISOs which are much more up-to-date.

quantumphaze · 2011-04-28 07:14:05

I was just about to ask this myself having just installed Arch on another machine and having lots of fun with pacman needing to update the database. Good to know it's in the works.

xiaq · 2011-04-28 09:54:33

+1 for new ISO. Another reason for a new release: when you do a fresh install and then "pacman -Syu", you would get quite a few .pacnew in /etc and you have to resolve that manually.

ngoonee wrote:

I believe (based on what I've read before) that its a manpower issue. Besides, there's unofficial ISOs which are much more up-to-date.

How many developers are estimated to be there? What about recruiting the builders of unofficial ISOs into the release team?

mundane · 2011-04-28 10:02:33

Isn't it so nice when this topic comes up again

It takes all of 2 minutes to sort out .pacnew files. It takes a helluva lot longer to release a bug free ISO, which let me remind everyone is done by volunteers in their free time for no money!

My thanks to Dieter and the releng team, as well as tpowa for the unofficial installation ISO's. Take your time, no rush

Last edited by mundane (2011-04-28 10:03:46)

Dieter@be · 2011-04-28 14:22:38

mundane wrote:

It takes all of 2 minutes to sort out .pacnew files. It takes a helluva lot longer to release a bug free ISO, which let me remind everyone is done by volunteers in their free time for no money!
My thanks to Dieter and the releng team, as well as tpowa for the unofficial installation ISO's. Take your time, no rush

thanks.
testing images can be found @ http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/

CPUnltd · 2011-04-28 21:07:02

wow, that's a lot of responses outta nowhere. I was just asking because I didn't see any topics on the subject at all... so I figuered I'd ask... better to know that it's being worked on than just sit around waiting and wondering. It's not like it's especially important... just tedious to do the multiple updates and such... I figure something like an update of pacman that changes the database structure and such on the user end would constitute a significant enough update to put together an updated ISO... that was all. I'm sure this is a somewhat sensitive topic, given some of the responses. I'm not looking to stir up trouble, but just seeking an informational update. Thanks for the info... a simple "we're working on it" will suffice for me at this point. As far as I'm concerned, this thread can be closed now.

dodgefan · 2011-05-14 04:32:35

not to bring up an old thread or beat a dead horse, its good to see an updated ISO coming, but really, i just installed arch on another pc the other day using ftp. setup very basic settings on the pc (rc.conf, pacman.conf, hosts, etc,etc) then reboot, pacman -Syu to make sure the base install is up to date, then install what i need. doesnt take that much at all

but like i said, its good to see a new ISO coming, been too long IMHO

RetroX · 2011-05-14 15:44:56

Just going to point out to you guys that testing ISOs are available. I just have a CD-RW that I use for Arch and I just use the latest whenever that I install:

http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/

kgas · 2011-05-14 16:00:22

previous two releases for normal installation went well. Now downloading the latest one (core dual iso 20110512). Thanks for the release Team. Dieter@be is drumming it well.

dodgefan · 2011-05-14 16:59:31

RetroX wrote:

Just going to point out to you guys that testing ISOs are available. I just have a CD-RW that I use for Arch and I just use the latest whenever that I install:
http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/

see that now, been using arch off and on for a few years, not sure if there was always testing ISOs but this was the first i have seen them. thanks again and thanks to development team as always!

TheStoryteller · 2011-05-16 11:32:46

I installed from the 64 bit 20111205 iso Arch on my netbook without a glitch. The new Ubuntu release made me finally switch this weekend. Thank you Ubuntu!

A new official iso probably will cause a lot more people switch to Arch.

Dieter@be · 2011-05-17 21:03:13

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=935662

quantumphaze · 2011-05-18 04:22:03

Grub 1.99 now supports boot from BtrFS. Is there any plans to use Grub2 for installation?

hitest · 2011-06-14 14:02:19

dodgefan wrote:

not to bring up an old thread or beat a dead horse, its good to see an updated ISO coming, but really, i just installed arch on another pc the other day using ftp. setup very basic settings on the pc (rc.conf, pacman.conf, hosts, etc,etc) then reboot, pacman -Syu to make sure the base install is up to date, then install what i need. doesnt take that much at all
but like i said, its good to see a new ISO coming, been too long IMHO

I've got an outdated ISO which does the job for me as I always do a network install: update the db then pull down a base system. Reboot, then I update via pacman -Syu. I then install only what I need for a lean and fast XFce desktop.

CPUnltd · 2011-06-15 01:13:04

thing is, for those who have limited bandwidth (which is still most of the planet) an updated iso eliminates them having to download so much if they install multiple times or bork their system and need to start from scratch again... Of course, the side option is mirroring the repo locally and updating once or twice a month... but again, that is a big bandwidth hog... That was my primary reason for asking the question...

sand_man · 2011-06-15 01:20:46

CPUnltd wrote:

thing is, for those who have limited bandwidth (which is still most of the planet) an updated iso eliminates them having to download so much if they install multiple times or bork their system and need to start from scratch again... Of course, the side option is mirroring the repo locally and updating once or twice a month... but again, that is a big bandwidth hog... That was my primary reason for asking the question...

This argument is silly. If you use Arch then you shouldn't be that worried about bandwith.
Besides, even if there was a new ISO, it would only take a few weeks (days?) for the packages to become obsolete anyway!

CPUnltd · 2011-06-15 01:39:27

fresh install and full update is over 500mb last time I recall doing a fresh install... will check again and make sure, but even 200MB might be a lot for someone if they have a cap of 2GB or less... also, for those using mobile broadband in the States, there are DEFINITELY caps of 250MB, 1GB, 2GB and most commonly, 5GB/month... I am taking those all into consideration with my statements/actions...

and on the argument of the frequency of the package updates is not all that powerful... how often does pacman in itself get updated? the last few weeks have seen pretty frequent updates, but usually, it doesn't happen that often. My argument is if significant packages that alter the base of the system are all updated, a new ISO should be made... not incremental updates, but full updates (like pacman going 3.5)... new ISOs are best produced when significant changes to the base system occur that require the user to do more work than a simple install and update to be functional. Even if there are instructions on what to do... if you're gonna keep it simple (as is part of Archs philosophy) then keeping the install steps as consistant as possible with updated ISOs just makes sense to me... pretty sure I'm not alone on that, but maybe I am...

Last edited by CPUnltd (2011-06-15 01:44:43)

sand_man · 2011-06-15 02:14:11

CPUnltd wrote:

new ISOs are best produced when significant changes to the base system occur that require the user to do more work than a simple install and update to be functional.

I agree here but having to download extra packages shouldn't not be a considering factor since that in itself is the nature of Arch. If I had a limit of 500MB / month I would not be using Arch.

CPUnltd · 2011-06-15 03:21:31

if it's your idea to drive away users by choosing to not keep ISOs up to date, that's fine... as long as you know that is a result of your actions and accept such. I don't follow such a doctrine. Maybe it's just me since I see it from a perspective somewhere between a dev and a user as opposed to being either/or... Unless it's significant work to put an ISO together (which it shouldn't be, but I'm used to mklivecd from Unity Linux/PCLinuxOS) and it significantly takes away from development time/energy, I don't see the point in not doing it. Make the ISO, drop it into a testing section... if no complaints after a week or 2 (or two weeks of silence after bugs reported are fixed) then release it. No strict schedules, but releasing once or twice a year would be a good idea, and as stability increases (less bugs on release) possibly more as time/energy allow... Just my take on the matter...

Inxsible · 2011-06-15 03:27:43

Arch isos are normally released every year on average. The last one that was released was in May 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archlinux#Release_history

Notice that Pacman v3 warranted an iso and so did v3.3. We should get a new release iso once its ready and tested by the devs.

I guess its just the fact that a lot has changed since then which is causing the issue here. But there are testing isos available in the meantime.

http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/ The most recent is from 4 days ago.

CPUnltd · 2011-06-15 04:21:16

I am now aware of those testing ISOs, and now of Archboot as well (though I don't really know what that is exactly, I am aware of it). The testing ISOs I am actually pretty new to, but I think I recall seeing one or two a while back last time I browsed the actual repos. You pose good points, Inxsible, and their does seem to be a range of updated options (as often as they are respectively updated). I guess in the end 432MB (roughly 212MB compressed) of an update download (including a huge kernel version jump and a pacman update that requires a rebuilding of the local database) seemed a bit much for those who like to experiment and frequently bork their systems (which I'm sure a large number of us do vs the number who build a stable desktop and leave it be for long periods)...

To each his own opinion... It's not so much a personal issue as I have a habit of mirroring the repo locally every few weeks or so and accessing that when I do a fresh install (which I do pretty often since I work hard to advocate Linux and do installs for other people as well as build test envs often and attempt to set up remasters...

hokasch · 2011-06-15 11:11:19

The easiest and proactive thing you can do about getting new isos out of the door would be to use releng and provide Feedback - especially if you do installations often (my systems usually last some 5 years;)).

I was about to propose promoting releng to the frontpage, but that came up already.

CPUnltd · 2011-06-15 17:04:40

you pose a good point, hokasch... will bookmark the releng that Inxsible link and put some focus into that...

Last edited by CPUnltd (2011-06-15 17:06:14)

Arch Linux

#1 2011-04-28 05:38:44

About due for a new ISO?

#2 2011-04-28 05:55:56

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#3 2011-04-28 05:56:04

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#4 2011-04-28 07:14:05

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#5 2011-04-28 09:54:33

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#6 2011-04-28 10:02:33

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#7 2011-04-28 14:22:38

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#8 2011-04-28 21:07:02

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#9 2011-05-14 04:32:35

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#10 2011-05-14 15:44:56

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#11 2011-05-14 16:00:22

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#12 2011-05-14 16:59:31

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#13 2011-05-16 11:32:46

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#14 2011-05-17 21:03:13

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#15 2011-05-18 04:22:03

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#16 2011-06-14 14:02:19

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#17 2011-06-15 01:13:04

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#18 2011-06-15 01:20:46

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#19 2011-06-15 01:39:27

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#20 2011-06-15 02:14:11

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#21 2011-06-15 03:21:31

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#22 2011-06-15 03:27:43

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#23 2011-06-15 04:21:16

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#24 2011-06-15 11:11:19

Re: About due for a new ISO?

#25 2011-06-15 17:04:40

Re: About due for a new ISO?

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