ISO image size -regarding

[Knight Tiger]

Hi,

To update all,


I followed Roland's suggestion and installed isomaster and just opened
the iso file (1GB) and saved it again and it 'magically' shrank to 570
MB. The new ISO was burned and tested on a physical machine and it
works fine. Thanks Roland !

I tried Ian's suggestion and copied from the ISO file and can confirm
that his recommended changes did the trick and the ripped files only
measure 570 MB making it easier to use mkisofs . Thanks Ian !

Cheers
Scott


On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 6:04 AM, Ian Smith <smithi at nimnet.asn.au> wrote:
> In freebsd-questions Digest, Vol 292, Issue 14, Message: 12
> On Fri, 8 Jan 2010 16:41:24 -0800 Knight Tiger <caugar at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > I am trying to create a custom ISO image of FreeBSD 6.4. The only
>  > difference between the release ISO and this custom image is a modified
>  > driver (amdsmb.ko). I did not create the new driver. I believe it was
>  > backported from a later release.
>  >
>  > I understand that this is not a backport of the driver  but a hack but
>  > the ISO size surprises me.
>  >
>  > The steps I had followed (listed below) resulted in an ISO image of
>  > around 1 GB while the original ISO image is around 600 MB. The new
>  > image work boots fine but I am not sure why it is huge
>  >
>  > Steps:
>  >
>  > // mount the release ISO
>  > # mdconfig -a -t vnode -f 6.4-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso -u 0
>  > # mount_cd9660 /dev/acd0 /mnt
>  >
>  > # pwd
>  > /usr/home/scott
>  >
>  > # mkdir custom
>  > # cd custom
>  >
>  > // copy iso files to custom
>  > # rsync  -a /mnt .
>
> Hi Scott,
>
> nearly all in /rescue are hardlinks to one big executable, and there are
> also hardlinks in /bin and /sbin, hence your size difference.  rsync(1):
>
>              Note that -a does not preserve hardlinks, because finding multi-
>              ply-linked  files is expensive.  You must separately specify -H.
>              Note also that for compatibility, -a currently does not  include
>              --flags  (see there) to include preserving change file flags (if
>              supported by the OS).
>
>  > # scp scott at remote:/boot/kernel/amdsmb.ko boot/kernel/.
>  >
>  > // wrap up in a ISO
>  > # cd ..
>  > #mkisofs -R -b boot/cdboot -no-emul-boot -o custom.iso custom
>  >
>  > The ISO file is created successfully but is huge. I mounted it in
>  > VirtualBox and boots just fine. I was able to install the OS (although
>  > I have not checked the functionality of amdsmb changes yet)
>  >
>  > I looked up information on creating custom ISO images but they had all
>  > involved rebuilding the kernel while I am not sure if I need to do the
>  > same Any leads is appreciated.
>
> Yes, running make release might be just a tad over the top for this :)
>
> cheers, Ian
>