On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 12:12:09 +0100,
Jeroen van Meeuwen <kanarip(a)kanarip.com> wrote:
There's one basic argument to make against a DVD .iso file being over
4GiB, and that is that users downloading the DVD .iso file to a vfat
filesystem cannot go over the magic 4GB filesize limit.
Note that it really is the .iso file size we're talking about, and we
really don't care about the >4GB squashfs image; it just so happens that
if the contents of a .iso go >4GB, the .iso will go >4GB ;-)
I think this should have said if the squashfs image is over 4 GiB, then
the iso will definitely be over 4 GiB.
This particular issue is raised by the Games Spin, which I consider
one
of the first downloads for a Windows user who may or may not be using
vfat still. Lots of (Windows) people want to see what Games are
available on Linux, right? A relatively greater portion of these Windows
users (then say, Linux users) may still be using vfat, and that's what
I'm concerned with.
Are there people that have a feel of what fraction of Windows users are using
vfat for their C: drive?
I wanted to vote on this during our last meeting. Either we block
>4GB
spins, or we allow them. So, the vote becomes: Do we allow .iso files
over 4GB?
I believe that this was just going to apply to published iso's. My
understanding is that it would be possible to pubished kickstart files
that will require more space.
With the change to livecd-tools now in rawhide, it will be possible for
the squashfs file system to be over 4 GiB (by using udf instead of iso9660
for the iso image). Most common DVD burning formats allow at least 4.7GB to
be put a the DVD. This would allow about another 300MB to be added to an iso
image (over the current limit) and still have it fit on a DVD.
For the games spin in particular exceeding the 4 GiB limit has benefits.
I need to either cut a single large game that probably is a good example of
what can be done on Fedora, several smaller games, or a good chunk of
the desktop add ons over the base image.
Its hard for me to judge the trade off as I don't know how common vfat is
for Windows users system drives. And the subset of users prone to trying
Fedora iso's may not be representative of all Windows users.
USB flash drives are typically formated with vfat, but I don't think people
are likely to download directly to a USB drive and if they want a portal
way to move around a DVD image, the expected way to do that is on a DVD.