Linux distro install CD usage...

[strredwolf]

On some wild speculation, I thought I'd find out how many CD's are needed for a network-less install.  Nothing actually performed, but still...

Gentoo:  2 CDs
Slackware: 2 CDs (comes with 4, but they're source code).
CentOS:  4 CDs
Debian:  14 CDs (go with the DVD).
Fedora:  4 CDs
OpenSuSE:  4 CDs
Ubuntu: 1 CD

With a network install, Gentoo goes to 1, Slackware and Debian go to floppies, and the rest I don't know about.

Comments

[kazriko.livejournal.com]

Well, Debian with an NFS server available is a matter of about 4-5 floppies, (Rescue/install, 3-4 driver disks, gets the base root tgz over nfs) but without a NFS server it takes somewhere around 15 (rescue/install, 3-4 drivers, about 10 floppies for base.tar.gz.) The minimal install CDs are better and range from 20mb credit card CD installs to about 185mb mini-cds (108 for intel arch mini-cd.)

Ubuntu could do a mini-install like that, but it'd probably be too much of a resource drain for them. Their server install uses very little of the resources on the CD. Ubuntu comes with 2 cds as well, but the other is a Live cd. :)