FreeBSD 12.1 i386 CD #1 image size not compatible with intended medium standard size

[Polytropon]

Due to a system where I can only boot from CD, I downloaded the
FreeBSD 12.1 CD image (disc1.iso). It was not possible to record
this in a standard way to a 700 MB (not 650 MB) blank CD medium
(here: Platinum 700 MB / 80 min).

I tried the "overburn" workaround (as suggested by cdrecord, with
the precaution that this is non-standard) as follows (for testing,
all parameters supplied manually):

	$ cdrecord dev=0,0,0 speed=8 -v -eject -sao -overburn -data <file>

But of course that was problematic, too.

	Capacity  Blklen/Sparesz.  Format-type  Type
	       0             2048         0x00  No Media Present
	                                        or Unknown Capacity

	Blocks total: 359846
	Blocks current:
	359846 Blocks remaining: -13044

	cdrecord: WARNING: Data may not fit on current disk.

	cdrecord: Notice: Overburning active.
	          Trying to write more than the official disk capacity.

Result: It recorded!

	Track 01:  728 of  728 MB written (fifo 100%) [buf  99%]   8.0x.
	Track 01: Total bytes read/written: 763678720/763678720
	          (372890 sectors).
	Writing  time:  646.563s
	Average write speed   7.7x.
	Min drive buffer fill was 94%
	Fixating...
	Fixating time:    7.867s
	cdrecord: fifo had 11653 puts and 11653 gets.
	cdrecord: fifo was 0 times empty and 11546 times full, min fill was 85%.

Trying to boot that CD in the desired system - it starts from CD!
But then an error occurs:

	FreeBSD bootstrap loader, Revision 1.1
	Startup error in /boot/lua/loader.lua:
	LUA ERROR: cannot open /boot/lua/loader.lua:
	No such file or directory.

	Can't load 'kernel'

	OK _

No, that's not okay. :-(

Oh, and: If I enter "help", as offered, I am being informed
that help is not available...

I booted the FreeBSD installation from the hard disk and
mounted the CD: READ_BIG ERROR, and a "ls -R /cdrom" led
to two further ILLEGAL REQUEST and MEDIUM ERROR messages.
Maybe I should try a different optical unit, but the one
in use here also booted (and installed from) a FreeBSD 4.5
CD I created many years (probably decades) ago, so I would
assume that the disc drive is okay. The file mentioned
above (here: /cdrom/boot/lua/loader.lua) was present on
the CD and readable.



File source:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/ISO-IMAGES/12.1/

Result file:

FreeBSD-12.1-RELEASE-i386-disc1.iso

763678720 bytes (728.4 MB says the browser)

It would be nice to remove a few of the additional packages
from the CD so it will fit on standard 650 MB (and therefore
700 MB) media _without_ requiring the workaround of "over-
burn".



My question is:

When will FreeBSD supply a CD image file that can actually be
used with normal CD media again without requiring a workaround
and possibly breaking the result?



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...