[tex-live] Could LZMA compression be combined with SFX format ?

[Manuel Pégourié-Gonnard]

Philip TAYLOR a écrit :
> I don't know what the typical installation time is
> for a full network install, but my experiments here
> with a 3Mb download speed have suggested that it is
> not feasible for use during (say) a half-day visit
> to a friend or colleague.  For such situations I
> would want to take a DVD with me.
> 
By the way, a USB stick is probably faster.

> I'm reasonably confident that it won't.  Even the
> Windows LZMA unmangler supplied as a part of the
> TeX Live kit cannot see inside a 7-Zip created
> SFX file, but (as I suggested in a previous
> message), given the licencing and availability of
> 7-Zip, is it not a candidate for distribution as
> the general unpacker ? [Zdenek's later comments
> already noted].
> 
Well, changing this is no little change, and for little (imho) benefit.
Idoubt we want to do it. (As mentionned by many inc myself, the iso is
not that important.)

> Off-line, Wolfgang Fleisher has suggested that
> a better approach is to mirror the TLNET branch
> of CTAN (circa 1Gb) and copy that to DVD, then
> use the network installer to install from DVD
> rather than from network, after which one uses
> "option location" to allow future updates to
> come from the network.

Yep. When I install on many machines, that's what I do : dowload the
archive subdir, unpack install-tl.zip, and put archive in this
directory. That way, you don't even need to give any option to the
installer, it does find the packages automatically. Never did a
comparative test DVD vs USB stick, but I suppose the USB stick is faster.

>  This seems a very promising
> approach, and one that I will try for my next
> away-of-home installation.  If this is viable,

It is, I tested for you :-)

> what are the extra features on the 2.5Gb
> texlive2008-20080822.iso DVD that will be missing
> from the 1Gb TLNET image ?
> 
Running live (almost) without installation.

Manuel.