[Mageia-dev] [ANN] unbloated installer stage1

Tue Jan 24 13:09:02 CET 2012

Hi
+
+Over the years, stage1 (both  all.rdz, boot.iso, ...) got bigger & bigger:
+10.0-10.1: 8Mo
+10.2-2005: 15M      <=======
+2006.0: 13M
+2007.0: 14M
+2007.1: 10M
+2008.0-2008.1: 12M
+2009.0: 26M      <=======
+2009.1: 32M      <=======
+2010.0: 33M
+2010.1: 36M (37M on 64 bit)
+2011   : 44M
+mga1  : 39M (40M on 64bit) (NEW: 53M on non-free 64 bit...)
+
+I've reduced this by:
+- removing alt1 (x86_64 only for now):
+- removing busybox
+- compressing initrd with XZ instead of gzip: only good on firmware
+- re compressing kernel modules with XZ instead of gzip:
+
+Removing alt1 (x86_64 only for now) saved 20Mb on boot.iso (50%)
+and on boot-nonfree.iso (43%).
+
+Removing busybox saved 1B (5.7% of all.rdz, 5% of boot.iso,
+3.7% of boot-nonfree.iso)
+
+Compressing initrd with XZ instead of gzip saved 2Mo (7.7%) on
+boot-nonfree.iso (better compressed firmwares).
+
+Re-compressing kernel modules with XZ instead of gzip saved -2.4Mb (15.9%)
+on all.rdz, -2Mb (10.5%) on boot.iso, -2mb on boot-nonfree.iso (8.3%)
+
+Total gain on boot.iso: -23Mb (57.5%) on x86_64 (less on i586)
+
+This should save space on ISOs too (we could save more by
+not including install/images on ISOs btw)
+
+There's a minor drawback: KA install won't work anymore but
+it's a niche. Is there someone using that feature?
+The proper way to support it would be to either:
+- have a stage1.5 for KA with busybox
+- include a static mke2fs (compiled against dietlibc)
+- disable KA support
+
+See you
+