shadow of the LiveDVD on the LiveCD

**spade** · 06-13-2006, 09:20 AM

The idea of the LiveDVD is seducing. If a LiveCD is good, LiveDVD can be only better, but :

1/ Downloading and burning a DVD iso, booting and running Knoppix from a DVD is much longer than from a CD.

2/ I have the feeling that every user is missing packages even in a LiveDVD. The only way to satisfy each particular set of needs is either to customize the LiveCD either to install the common one on the HD and to apt-get the needed packages.

3/ It looks like it is difficult to release the LiveCD and the LiveDVD at the same time. So the LiveCD 5.0.1 is still "old" when it is released. LiveDVD doesn't seem to be very popular because downloading the big iso is painful. Bugs are discovered a long time after the LiveDVD release (http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtop...436&highlight=), and their reports may be too late to be fixed in the following release.

To satisfy most of the users, wouldn't be it better to put high priority on LiveCD releases ?

**Harry Kuhman** · 06-13-2006, 09:52 AM

Originally Posted by spade

2/ I have the feeling that every user is missing packages even in a LiveDVD. The only way to satisfy each particular set of needs is either to customize the LiveCD either to install the common one on the HD and to apt-get the needed packages.

If you want to install to hard disk and apt-get packages, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to install a hard disk distro like Debian and apt-get just what you want than to install some live disc system?

As to the delay between DVD and CD, with5.0.1 it was just a few hours. Hardly a valid complaint. Yes it was longer with version 4; looks like things have been learned.

**spade** · 06-13-2006, 10:20 PM

Sorry I meant LiveDVD 5.x and LiveCD 5.x. The delay is rather few months than few hours.
If we had a LiveCD 5.0, more bugs could have been fixed in 5.0.1

**Harry Kuhman** · 06-13-2006, 10:36 PM

But 5.0 was only produced as a Live DVD under contract and under deadline for Linux TAG. They wanted a DVD, they paid for a DVD. Are you suggesting that should have gotten a CD and not a DVD?

The deadline situation likely contributed to the inclusion of some of the bugs. But this is understandable when you set a dealdline for software release. Perhaps an officail release of the 5.0 DVD on the Internet would have helped by having more users test 5.0 (I know many including myself will not download an unofficial ISO of Knoppix not released by Klaus) but the downside of this would be that Klaus would be releasing what he knows to be buggy, he likely much prefers to release something that he considers somewhat stable (although I'm sure he understands that once it is in the hands of hundreds of thousands of users they will find some issues that he never came across). So the argument is somewhat the opposite of what you made; an early release of only the DVD may have helped you get a more stable CD release. But focusing on only a CD release isn't in Knoppix's interest or it's spirit, and will not get Knoppix the broad base of users that help find the bugs that you seem concerned about.

**spade** · 06-15-2006, 10:14 PM

Sorry Harry, I can't understand your arguments.
To make mine very simple :

- I prefer LiveCD than LiveDVD because:
1/ faster to download
2/ faster to run
3/ benefit of LiveDVD not real
- Despite 2 releases of v5, the latest version which works on my PC is 4.x, which is a bit old considering kernel version (and all other packages)
- the concrete result is I use Mepis more than Knoppix

I think I'm not the only one to think that way, so if Linux TAG satisfaction has a bigger priority than users one, I think you are on the right track.

**Harry Kuhman** · 06-15-2006, 10:49 PM

Originally Posted by spade

Sorry Harry, I can't understand your arguments.
To make mine very simple :

- I prefer LiveCD than LiveDVD because:
1/ faster to download
2/ faster to run
3/ benefit of LiveDVD not real
- Despite 2 releases of v5, the latest version which works on my PC is 4.x, which is a bit old considering kernel version (and all other packages)
- the concrete result is I use Mepis more than Knoppix

I think I'm not the only one to think that way, so if Linux TAG satisfaction has a bigger priority than users one, I think you are on the right track.

I agree with 1, but as long as a CD exists then I don't see how that is an issue, as people have the option to get the CD if that is what they want. Number 2 doesn't make much sense to me, I doubt that I could detect any difference on my systems. I don't agree with 3. That is not to say that I didn't get the 5.0.1 CD first, I did, and it will be the one that I put in my travel case so that I have a version of the new Knoppix when I hit a new machine that I desire to run it on (because CD is more universally usable than DVD still). But since one of the main reasons that Knoppix exists is a live bootable optical demo of Linux with no need to install anything, having more applications just makes sense. I really felt the loss as games vanished from the early Knoppix CDs to make way for software bloat, and games are a great way to introduce new users to a system (there are still games that are on the early Knoppix CD that are missing from the Knoppix DVD!)

I don't think that TAG is a higher priority than the users, and I never said that. But TAG commisioned the new 5.0 release and gave Klaus a deadline, so he gave them what he could at the deadline, bugs and all. And they wanted a DVD, they got a DVD. You seem to think that Knoppix should only exist as a CD because that fits your own narrow needs. But as bloat continues to eat away at the available CD space, there is less and less room for applications on the CD. The DVD has yet to be filled. It could easily include yet more applications. For example, a nice selection of the ham radio applications available for Linux could be included as well. This would make Knoppix a nice tool that Linux aware ham radio people could hand out to other hams, which would help spread knowledge of Linux through another group of technical people (yea, I've seen the ham radio remaster of Knoppix, but it isn't well done (at least not for us English speakers) and it lacks some of the utility of a General purpose Knoppix disc).

So I don't really see it as being an issue of the priority being the users or TAG, I see it more an issue of the priority being all potential people that Knoppix could introduce to Linux or your own restricted view of what you want. That isn't intended to be a flame, I just don't think you are looking at what both DVD and a CD release can do as opposed to only a CD release. And yes, there are bugs in this version, and I expect there will always be some bugs in any future version. This is unfortunate. But it would not have been prevented if the TAG DVD was never made. And it wasn't caused by the CD version being released a few hours after the DVD version of 5.0.1. I hope that you have reported the bug that you found to the official knopper.net site, and I hope that you did it without complaining that it occured because Klaus was trying to do too much without focusing on just your hardware.