[CentOS-devel] how minimal is a minimal too minimal

19.3.2014 18.32, Karanbir Singh kirjoitti:
> the aim being to setup a base image, that is under 150mb to download and
> deploy.

I think there's a bit of confusion between what is included in the 
minimal.iso, and what gets installed as a result of installing from the 
said minimal.iso. Currently the set of packages that gets installed from 
minimal.iso is fixed, but it doesn't necessarily need to be that way.

How about a single minimal.iso that lets you decide how minimal you want 
it to be? The default would contain the usually required tools like yum, 
openssh-server, dhclient, dhcpv6-client, but if someone doesn't want 
them, they could be deselected from the installer. Likewise, if someone 
needs openssh-clients, it could be selected to be installed from the 
installer.

Yes, that may mean some more downloading for those folks who need to use 
only the 'micro' package set, but the benefit of having a slightly more 
general purpose .iso outweights that, imho.

I'm looking at this from the support perspective. "I installed the micro 
variant, but there's no yum to install more packages?" -- "Correct, the 
micro.iso does not contain yum, you will need to download and burn and 
install the minimal.iso if you need that [or jump through other hoops]" 
-- "Well that sucks, I'm switching to $some_other_distro."