Fatdog64 size plans - How long do you plan to fit on a CD?

[Tag365]

How much longer do you expect the OS to fit on a regular CD? Do you have plans to shrink the OS later to still fit on one?

[Clarity]

@Tag365 If I could offer you solutions such that NO distro size would matter ever again, would you consider it?

This forum has 3 technology that would address this, each are CD solutions too.

[Tag365]

Sure, I wonder how much longer it will stay officially on one CD, since it increased by 300 MB since 2016 or so from the 700 series.

[Keef]

Just be aware that Clarity's solution won't involve using a physical CD. It wll be booting the iso from some other medium.

[step]

How much longer do you expect the OS to fit on a regular CD? Do you have plans to shrink the OS later to still fit on one?

Fatdog64 and many other distros take a very modular approach to OS size by means of SFS modules. We can - and have in the past - decided to move something non-essential out of the ISO and into a separate SFS that users can download as needed. No one needs everything. A typical example is compilers, which aren't certainly needed to boot or operate the base OS. When the need arises, the compilers SFS (fd64-devx.sfs) is a hefty, one-time download. Nothing to install, just load it with a single click to get all compilers, manuals, and more. So, to come to your questions, we do not have plans to move away from CD media for the base OS. If base OS size will grow to a point that it can't fit inside an CD we will first try to make trade-offs and move some components out to SFS files. Should that also become impossible due to future technology and what not, well, then we will be forced to move away from CD media. But like I said, that isn't our plan.

[Clarity]

The prior post is not entirely accurate.

The 3 solutions prevalent in use over the forum is as follows:

1. The traditional manner you and I and others continue to use CD/DVD as we have

2. There are 2 other technologies that have surfaced and have been in use since 2019 with FATDOG being one of the 1st distro operating in use of each

   1. SuperGRUB2 (aka referred to over the forum as "SG2D")

   2. Ventoy

I and others have been using the last 2 technologies since 2019. It works.

Here's the scenario of SG2D:

1. You make a tiny CD/DVD once and use it to boot forevermore

2. The CD is booted and will find any ISO you have saved

3. You choose from the list of ISOs it finds and boot it.

For example on my system I have 5 FATDOGs from v5xx to v9xxj. When the CD boots is shows me what it finds. I select the one I want and it boots to desktop. From this point forward it works EXACTLY as you have always come to expext from every FATDOG you ever booted including saving as you have always EXPECTED. There is NO difference in what you have or can do with every FATDOG you've ever used.

You can find SG2D covered here as it is applicable in use for EVERY forum ISO file as it has been tested and verified to work as things do in the past.

Summary for SG2D use:
Make a CD/DVD/USB once. It will list your ISO files. Make your selection and it will boot to desktop with all the same bells and whistles of any FD... including Persistence wherever you like, as usual.

Enjoy
P.S. If you need any help, forum members or myself will help, as usual.

[Flash]

@Tag365, you might consider replacing your CD drive with a DVD drive. You'd still have all the advantages of running Puppy from an optical disk, plus a more robust multisession capability and far more room to save stuff.

[Tag365]

I'm not actually booting on CD as my main method, I generally use the installation on my hard disk or boot off my flash drive to run Fatdog64 on my laptop. I was just asking how much longer can users expect to be able to install Fatdog64 on a single CD - the installation is now 600 MB.

[Clarity]

Methods 2 &3 mentioned above removes concerns of ISO expansion to media. Also removes the setup needs for boot manager as it allows FATDOG to handle that with no user involvement needed. None, expansion or setup, is required.

All the users need to concern themselves is only for Session savings for reboot. FATDOG is the most flexible of the forum distro as it accommodates session management to ALL media types.

In my use for overall session management, I have a Linux partition labeled 'Persistence' which contains a folder named 'Sessions' where ALL of forum distro sessions are kept ... making it easy to manage no matter which distro version is run.

Just info that might be useful. Try either methods and report your finding for others to see.

[fatdoguser]

Relativity. In a era where a desktop system might have 1000 or more cpu's (graphics card), multi GB of ram, is able to perform billion of instructions per second, and wifi speeds are headed towards multi-Gbs Fatdog in percentage terms is tiny.