[tex-live] TeX install on single-layer DVD

[Robin Fairbairns]

Philip TAYLOR <P.Taylor at rhul.ac.uk> wrote:

> Norbert Preining wrote:
> 
> > Yesm but he wants to duplicate the DVDs, and that means generating
> > an ISO image. 
> 
> The second part does not necessarily follow from the former;
> there are many ways of duplicating a DVD that do not require
> an ISO image.

sure.  you can cut a video stream onto it.  aiui, that doesn't involve
iso 9660 (as modified for dvds, i assume -- i've not read the latest
version of the standard).

however, if you want files on the dvd, you need a file system.  boot
discs typically work by loading a boot image (file) into memory -- the
bootstrapper has a proto-filing system in it.

> > So providing an ISO image is the very same as the first step
> > of duplicating. So if we provide a .iso then that is fine.
> 
> But it doesn't address Gianluca's problem, which is that after duplication
> he wants to end up with a single-layer DVD from which a non-
> computer-savvy student can install TeX Live on "any reasonable
> platform".

that is to say, the first stage bootstrap is "select boot image for this
machine".  how it does _that_ without a file system seems pretty
difficult to imagine.

frankly, if gianluca's students are so un-savvy that they can't open a
directory and decide whether the file called "windows" is for them,
rather than the file called "ubuntu linux", then i fear there's little
hope for them.  (until someone designs an auto-detecting app which
discovers what the system is, and makes the decision for them.  not the
sort of thing i can imagine the tex live team deciding to spend their
time on, as it happens.)

robin