Why not make iso.bz2 available?

[rozen]

I experiment with OS's and a few days ago, I decided to download and try SchilliX, a variation of OpenSolaris. When I went to the download site, I saw that they were offering a compressed ISO. It turns out that the size of SchilliX-0.4.4.iso.bz2 was about 272 MB and when expanded SchilliX-0.4.4.iso was 632 MB.

So my question is "Why isn't the Kubuntu iso available in compressed form?". Cutting the download size and time by more than 50 percent would really significant. For me using a medium speed connection, that amounts to saving more than two hours of download time. I bet one would also see a benefit at download server as well.

I understand that doing so could confuse some users, but for people who are familiar with using bz2, it would be a real boon.

Is there a technical problem that I am overlooking?

Of course, I am sticking with Kubuntu.

Thanks,
Don

[losmurfs]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

I vote in favor of compressed iso images. Attention everyone, reply to this thread.

[toad]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

good idea - write an email to mark shuttleworth

[AltairMiraged]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

Why should the ISO size matter as long as it fits on a disc, Make haste not waste..


Compressed means longer loading times and it would probably interfere with Live.

[rozen]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

The idea would be to compress the iso with bzip2 so that download times and download server loads would be cut in half. The user would unzip the compressed iso and then burn the CD. It shouldn't affect a LiveCD in any way. The whole point is to conserve download time.

[monte48lowes]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

What time is required to unzip the file once it's downloaded? I can download the iso in around 35 minutes using DSL.

Mike

[rozen]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

To unzip:

-rw-r--r-- 1 rozen rozen 260M 2008-02-05 20:30 SchilliX-0.4.4.iso.bz2

getting:

-rw-r--r-- 1 rozen rozen 607M 2008-02-05 20:30 SchilliX-0.4.4.iso

I ran:

time bunzip2 SchilliX-0.4.4.iso.bz2

real 0m51.996s
user 0m50.099s
sys 0m1.652s

[aged hippy]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

What time is required to unzip the file once it's downloaded? I can download the iso in around 35 minutes using DSL.

Mike

It's worth bearing in mind that not everyone has broadband, until i got it here i was running at 28kb a second with frequent connection drop-outs.

Can you imagine how much time (and how many sweary-words) it would save if the .iso were zipped?

[AltairMiraged]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

Bow down to my 20/20 mbit connection you mortals!

[monte48lowes]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

It's worth bearing in mind that not everyone has broadband, until i got it here i was running at 28kb a second with frequent connection drop-outs.

Can you imagine how much time (and how many sweary-words) it would save if the .iso were zipped?

True.. however with the difficulty in getting windows to burn an iso image properly already an issue, trying to find a program that can unzip a bz2 may add some difficulty to the process. Additionally, one must consider the time it would take to unzip the file on a 500MHz machine with 128MB of RAM...

These are not real answers, just thoughts in my head. Broadband is becoming more and more widespread these days.

"Never underestimate the bandwith of a stationwagon full of backup tapes. (Or a 747 full of CD-ROMs)" http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/23/1719234

Mike

[toad]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

monte has a point - there ARE people out there still using windows

[Detonate]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

Make it an optional download, leaving the others as they are. It would then be available to those who wish to use it.

[claydoh]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

Another issue is how to make sure the images verify (md5sum), might that be subject to change upon extraction/extraction?

plus an extra tool needed, etc to use...

I cannot find the reason why all distros do not compress the images, but afaik, they never have, even back when I (and most of the world) used dialup speeds to download them...

[losmurfs]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

All the issues pointed out above are non issues. You provide uncompressed to the uninformed and you provide compressed for anyone wanting to have the download in 10 minutes instead of 35. md5sum is used automatically by cd burners like k3b, which uses the uncompressed file that you extract from the compressed file prior to trying to burn. Added bonus, compressed files have features simular to md5sum built in so you can validate the compressed file with its built in integrety features and then verify the .iso again with md5sum after extracing. You can extract bzip2 files on Windows (7-zip.org). No one is suggesting that we only make compressed ISOs available, we are suggesting that we increase download speeds for everyone by providing a compressed ISO to those who would like their download to finish faster.

[claydoh]

Re: Why not make iso.bz2 available?

As a test, I created bzipped archives of both a Kubuntu Gutsy desktop (live) disk, and also a Hardy Alternate (text based) install disk, and here are the results:

hardy-alternate-i386.iso: 649.1mb
hardy-alternate-i386.iso.tar.bz2: 640.2mb
size of files contained in mounted iso file; 645.7mb

So you can see, it is what is in the iso that makes it more compression-friendly or not,
Most of the files in the images are deb files, which are already compressed, which is probably why it didn't do so well.

kubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso: 697.1mb
kubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso.tar.bz2: 686.1mb
size of files contained in mounted iso file: 696.1mb

So my guess is that the SchilliX image has some empty space in it for some reason or other. I am not familiar with opensolaris, but I used to use BeOS, and when they offered their free version, it was a <50mb download that extracted to a 500mb file as most of it was empty space needed to run its file system.