Why are Included Packages shrinking

[Kris Kennaway]

On Fri, Jul 11, 2003 at 05:17:40PM -0600, Joseph Lewis wrote:
> I just have a simple question.  As I've been tracking BSD over the years,
> the options for installing packages (on a post-install configuration)
> appears (under-exaggerated term) to be getting smaller.  Is there a reason
> that none of the release people want to include any of the default dist
> files?  I work on a few machines online all the time, and also one or two
> offline.  But that just means that I have to take a chance of missing a
> prerequisite when I download a port file.  Why not just include the common
> ones on the CD like used to be done?  (Such as Apache, DHCPD, etc)

The tone in your email makes you come across pretty poorly ("Is there
a reason that none of the release people want to include any of the
default dist files?").  Try to remember that you're getting this OS
for free, and hundreds of volunteers are donating thousands of hours
of their time to create the product you're using.

A CD holds about 700MB.  The current ports collection fills 15GB of
distfiles and 5GB of packages.  There's no way that we can possibly
ship more than a tiny fraction of the 9000 ports available on FreeBSD
on a single CD (let alone any of the distfiles), but the free space on
the disc1 installation CD provided by FreeBSD is indeed filled with
some of the most commonly-used packages.

However, you can easily use sysinstall to access the full set of
packages available on the FTP sites by just selecting a FTP mirror
from the list provided to you.

Kris
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