switching discs during install

[Randy Pratt]

On Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:22:37 +0100
Mike Clarke <jmc-freebsd2 at milibyte.co.uk> wrote:

> On Sunday 07 September 2008, James Strother wrote:
> 
> > That said, I still think that as long as the freebsd foundation
> > distributes CD images it would be worthwhile to make them as
> > effective as possible. Actually, even if the install were moved to a
> > DVD, the ordered install I proposed would still improve the
> > situation.  When the packages are haphazardly ordered on the disc,
> > the CD/DVD reader is forced to perform a large number of seeks that
> > dramatically reduces data throughput.  When they are read in order,
> > read rates should be much better.
> 
> They might not be as haphazard as you suggest. ISTR once reading that 
> the CDs were arranged with the most popular packages on the first CD so 
> that you would only need to download disk 2 (and 3) if you wanted some 
> of the less common packages. With your suggested layout it's quite 
> likely that a package which most of the others depend on would be right 
> down at the bottom of the list with the result that you'd invariably 
> need to download all 3 CD images.
> 
> I think the best way to avoid the need for frequent CD switching would 
> be for sysinstall to sort the list of selected packages into CD order 
> before installing them. I imagine this would require some changes to 
> pkg_add to prevent it from installing dependencies and I expect the 
> possible benefits would not be considered to be sufficient to justify 
> the effort.

Another way to avoid switching CDs is to select an FTP server for
installing packages.  This also avoids downloading bits you don't
need or want.

There is another discussion:

  http://docs.freebsd.org/cgi/mid.cgi?1220762797.29265.43.camel

which would address the disk swapping by removing all the packages
from disc1 and providing a DVD of packages that could be used
after installation.

HTH,

Randy



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