General question about Easy-Urpmi

[mindwave]

Guys,

 

I havent worked with URPMI as itself much.

 

usually I go through MCC and leave the defaults, occasionally I have added a single additional site, but i run a pretty booring box.

 

But reading many posts here, it seems as though a LOT of folks prefer EASY-URPMI and tout many of its benefits.

 

however since I'm using MCNL (a hd install of a small 'live cd') I was wondering if I followed the suggestions given by the EASY-URPMI process, would it add, considerably, to the space used by my installed OS.

 

I know this seems like a silly question, but I DESPISE OS drive crashes so I figure that if i run off a version like MCNL and then remaster it, whenever I make changes, keep all my data on a seperate HD, then anytime a crash occurs, I can pop in the cd/dvd hit reboot and boom be back to my EXACT desktop/install in 10 minutes.

 

because of that I need to keep an eye on the amount of spoace my install requires.

 

right now I'm working off CD, but i'm quite sure I'll need to move to DVD at some point, but in doing so I'll need more ra.

 

right now for example using mklivecd, my resulting ISO is 409MB, if I wstep through EASY-URPMI, will that go up?

 

i know this sounds like a pretty ignorant question, but the think i like about linux is that i always feel like i'm still learning (mostly because i am)

 

thanks for any and all input and ideas.

 

j

[tyme]

It will only add considerably to the space used when you start installing programs. It won't install any programs for you, it will simply add the repositories to your sources so that you may use them to install software from. How much larger it makes your installed OS depends on how many programs you install and how much space each specific program takes.

 

So: No, just adding the sources won't add significantly to the size of your base install. But yes, once you start installing programs, the size can increase, depending on the size of the program you install this could be minimal or significant.

[SoulSe]

As tyme has said - Easy-Urpmi will set up your sources enabling you to download more packages than are available from the standard repositories, including your CDs.

 

This means that Mandriva will just be storing a bunch of text, which doesn't take up much space at all. Not worth worrying about.

 

If you run a 'boring box' however, you might not even need any of those extra packages. If all you do is basic productivity / Internet stuff then you probably already have everything you need. Still, it is nice to have access to the full list of stuff for incase ;)

[Ixthusdan]

I wanted to add that MCC is a front end gui for urpmi. You are already using it. By setting it up with better sources, you will no longer need to put anything into the drive for adding software. You will need an active internet connection. You should always setup 5 key sources: main, contrib, updates, plf-free, and plf-nonfree. I also add a local source, a directory, so that if I want to use an rpm not found in the other repositories, (rare) urpmi will still resolve dependencies.

[mindwave]

thanks for the clarification guys.

 

i kind of suspected that, but I know that certain types of DB's store text as text and some of them use a proprietary format which may or may not lend itself to compression.

 

I understand that when i install Aducaity I add 40MB (or whatever) to the size of my image, I just wanted to verify that i wasnt going to be losing an valuable size contraints just by updating my sources.

 

and yes although i do GENERALLY run a boring box, sometimes I like t play with some stranger stuff. and so having a wider vvariety of sources seems like a better idea.

 

j

[ianw1974]

If you do decide to add the sources, use compressed index. Else main and contrib will be at least 25MB each. Otherwise, they are less than 1mb, so won't take up much space at all.

[SoulSe]

You can also choose not to download full hdlist files, which saves tons of space. The smaller versions have the package names, but without descriptions. Most people do not need the description and a lot of space can be saved by excluding them.

 

The way you do this is to add a source using synthesis.hdlist.cz instead of the standard hdlist.cz file.

 

For example, in a main repository, the hdlist.cz file is around 11733KB while the synthesis.hdlist.cz is only 80!

 

This is also useful for people on dialup or other poor Internet connections, as the update time for urpmi is also minimised as smaller downloads are required.

[ianw1974]

That's what I said "compressed index" ;)

[emmanuel_uk]

just curious or not understanding

But reading many posts here, it seems as though a LOT of folks prefer EASY-URPMI and tout many of its benefits.

prefer? As opposed to what?

http://www.mandrivauser.de/smarturpmi/ looks the same to me as easyurpmi (I am curious is there a major difference that one should knowa about?)

prefer as opposed to entering the urpmi.add lines by hand?

prefer as opposed to tar.gz?

[Ixthusdan]

I have found that many people are confused about how urpmi works. They do not realize that Easy-Urpmi is a setup tool for urpmi. Instead, it at first appears to be a different method for software installation. I think that is all.