Bug#1038440: debian-cd: debian-12.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso is too big for a CD

[Claude Heiland-Allen]

Source: debian-cd
Severity: normal
Tags: d-i
X-Debbugs-Cc: ***@mathr.co.uk

Dear Maintainer,

* What led up to the situation?

I downloaded the "small" debian-12.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso (738 MiB)

* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
ineffective)?

I tried to burn it to a CD-RW disc:

sudo wodim blank=all
sudo wodim -dao debian-12.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso

* What was the outcome of this action?

wodim: WARNING: Data may not fit on current disk.
wodim: Notice: Use -overburn option to write more than the official disk capacity.
wodim: Notice: Most CD-writers do overburning only on SAO or RAW mode.

* What outcome did you expect instead?

The ISO to be small enough to fit on an 80-minute CD (703 MiB).


I'm not sure if I will actually need a CD,
(refurbishing someone's old laptop,
I don't know yet if it will boot from USB stick or not),
but if it can only boot from CD I will have to
install Bullseye (whose netinst does fit on a CD)
and then upgrade, which is not ideal.


Thanks,


Claude

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 12.0
APT prefers stable-security
APT policy: (990, 'stable-security'), (990, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-debug')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-8-amd64 (SMP w/16 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

when comparing 12.0.0 with 11.5.0 i see three file trees which have grown
substantially:

du of mounted debian-11.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso :
5 /firmware
126611 /install.amd
308479 /pool

du of mounted debian-12.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso :
221108 /firmware
156509 /install.amd
589416 /pool

In pool of 12.0.0 i see another firmware tree
220570 /pool/non-free-firmware
but this does not cost much media capacity, because the file content is
shared with the files in the /firmware tree:

$ xorriso -indev debian-12.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso \
-find / -sort_lba -exec report_lba --
...
Report layout: xt , Startlba , Blocks , Filesize , ISO image path
...
File data lba: 0 , 18420 , 8217 , 16827872 , '/firmware/firmware-atheros_20230210-5_all.deb'
File data lba: 0 , 18420 , 8217 , 16827872 , '/pool/non-free-firmware/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-atheros_20230210-5_all.deb'
...

Such deduplication of hard links also happens with initrd.gz and vmlinuz
files in /install.amd. The real storage sizes as measured in above -find
output are:
11.5.0 12.0.0 Growth
/firmware 0 MiB 216 MiB 216 MiB
/install.amd 67 MiB 138 MiB 71 MiB
/pool 301 MiB 360 MiB 59 MiB

To fit on a regular "700 MB" (~ 702 MiB) CD-R/CD-RW these would have to
shrink by at least 36 MiB.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

[Cyril Brulebois]

Post by Claude Heiland-Allen
I'm not sure if I will actually need a CD,
(refurbishing someone's old laptop,
I don't know yet if it will boot from USB stick or not),
but if it can only boot from CD I will have to
install Bullseye (whose netinst does fit on a CD)
and then upgrade, which is not ideal.
Revisit firmware packages included in the netinst (amd64 is 738M for
12.0.0): at least nvidia stuff wasn't planned in the beginning, and
could be removed.

Cheers,