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Yggdrasil ships Linux Open Source DVD
JWhitlock writes " ZDNet reports that Yggdrasil Computing has released a Linux DVD Archive. It's a DVD9-ROM with the FTP archives of Metalab.org and GNU.org. It's all freeware source, no binaries, 8.3GB compressed, over 23 GB uncompressed. It has no distributions on it, so you have to have Linux first. From the website:
"...you must be running Linux kernel 2.2.14, 2.3.28 or later in order to access files located more than four gigabytes into the DVD. Aside from that, your standard CD-ROM and iso9660 ("isofs") filesystem support that you use for accessing CD's will be sufficient to access this DVD. "
You can only get it direct from their website" Remember the old infomagic set? That thing blew me away thinking "A whole gig!", but thats nothing compared to this stuff.
Oh wait. Never mind.
Now we can finally figure out how many dirty words are in the majority of Open Source software... I wonder how long it'll take to grep 23 gigs :)
Your standard CD-ROM? Wouldn't you need a DVD drive?
The really neat thing seems to be that Yggdrasil is also releasing the software they used to create the DVD to the community, according to the press release. They compare it to the past release of mkisofs and cdwrite that led to the move of Linux distros onto CDs; can anybody who remembers back that far comment? Was it really impossible to burn DVDs under Linux prior to this?
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Don't know, but I have an Infomagic collection from end 1996 that contains 6 CD's, or about 4 Gigabytes. And that's talking back in 1996! When kernel 2.0 was just out.
:)
Aah, back then it also ran with 4 MB RAM, which can't be said of most distro's nowadays (not that I blame them
Every expression is true, for a given value of 'true'
The blurb also says Yggdrasil is releasing the software they used to master the DVD.. How would such a beast differ from mkisofs+cdwrite/cdrecord?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Wow. I thought they had died off years ago. I see they are selling the few remaining copies of their 1995 Plug-and-play Linux. It looks like they have given up on the OS side of linux and are concentrating on the software and code side. It is cool that they are still hanging around and it will be interesting to see what they do from here.
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Is it just me, or is their site a candidate for entry to Ghost Sites? I mean, they have their 1995 distro on display, without a touch of irony. Maybe I am missing something...
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
From the CD contents:
2 GB of hello kitty trash can icons.
A 3.8 GB collection from the "best of swap space 1998" awards.
11 GB of lazer sounds.
1.2 GB of the most realistic surround sound fart ever recorded.
120k text file explaining why you should get a high speed internet connection so that this shit isn't out of date as soon as you put the disc in your drive.
Intergalactics - A pretty cool strategy game in a java applet
Now that's a blast from the past. They had one of the earliest, if not *the* earliest, commercial distributions of Linux.
Their claim to fame was their live filesystem. You could mount the CD as the basis for a full Linux system. Add a bit of actual disk space for tmp and home, and you were in business.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Writable DVDs are single layer- meaning only 4 Gb.
Production DVDs are double layer and the pressing houses want the data fed to them in a just-so format on a DLT. What Yggdrasil has done is make a program to master that tape for you without needing a Windows box and expensive commercial software. For a DVD writer, I suspect that the traditional tools work just fine.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
This DVD better be a weekly subscription or i'm going to have a backup of ever out of date software.
Open Source moves faster then anything out there. Getting a copy of win98 might last you 4 years, a copy of Gnome is only good for about 4 weeks.
-Jon
this is my sig.
You're talking about mastering and burning a DVD recordable disk. Those are single layer affairs and can only hold 4Gb- end of story. This is a production double layer disk produced by a pressing house. The pressing houses only accept DLTs with a special formatting of the data- previously, you needed expensive, proprietary applications (that ran on Windows, for the most part, from what I understand) to master the tape for pressing. The Yggdrasil app does the tape mastering for you.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
By the way, if you look carefully at the DVD page, you'll see that there is actually a way to get the DVD "for free," assuming that either:
(Does anyone else remember the bad old days when, rather than the relatively modern thing of arguing about whether Slackware was about to set up horrendous and rapacious licensing, or the newbie thing of arguing over the same thing for Red Hat, that the flame wars were over the peculiar way Yggdrasil had created for pulling programs automagically off CD on demand so that you'd only have the stuff you actually used on your hard drive? Boy, there were flame wars back then...)
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Too bad it's not bootable, or this would be the ultimate rescue disk.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
I saw a stack of 10X DVD drives at CompUSA a few days ago for about that. It also works as some ridiculous multiplier CD drive, too. Heck, they might even be cheaper than that (I got one on sale for about $110 nearly a year ago.)
Go get one.
You don't have to run MPAA movie DVDs on the thing if you don't want to. (Er, actually you can't very easily, can you?) But you can then access all the stuff that's becoming availale on DVD-ROM, like this Yggdrasil basket of goodies, or SuSE's now-up-to-6-or-7-CDs-or-1-DVD distro. (And maybe even stuff like Brittanica's DVD encyclopedia if it doesn't require some wierd proprietary Windows-only reader software.)
(Now, if only the price of DVD writers (and blanks) would come down so that I can afford to back up all those gigabytes of cheap hard drive I have.)
No, no, no. It ain't ME babe,
It ain't ME you're looking for.
-- Alastair
The MPAA gets $15 for every CSS enabled DVD drive sold, you are indirectly funding the MPAA's DVD lawsuits.
There is a reason why Yggdrasil's Linux distro has failed.
Anyone who tried to pronounce "Yggdrasil" chocked to death.
I was part-shopping for a new machine, and found a Creative Labs 6X on pricewatch for $67. Unfortunately, I think that DVD hardware makers are still required to pay the DVD-CCA. Which sucks. The best way to go (and the way I chose) was to hit ebay, and buy a used DVD drive that is old enough to not have the new RPC-2 region controls in it. (check out www.dvdutils.com for a list of which drive models are region free) With a used model, none of your money will go to support more lawsuits to kill your fair-use rights.
I spent less than $50, got a DVD-ROM, and didn't pay "the man" a cent. Sounds good to me!
my opinion is the only one that matters i mean i dont care so why should anyone else i install everything by rpm and downloading patch and installing patches is for nerds and besides ive got adsl so who cares about the poor fuckers with the slow modem connections that might possibly want the source code all i know is that i dont want it so no one else could possibly want it either by the way im 13.
Thus, it is the first book about UNIX with a picture of one on the cover.
Axel
Axel
mhm23x3, alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
For instance, a single DVD can be 2-sided and have 2 layers per side. CDROM's aren't made this way, and therefore can't read ANY DVD.
"I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious." - Albert Einstein
(Now, if only the price of DVD writers (and blanks) would come down so that I can afford to back up all those gigabytes of cheap hard drive I have.)
Speaking of backups, I found a great service the other day that's finally allowed me to back up lots of storage. Connected.com allows unlimited online storage ... for only $15/month. I think it's only Windows only, but I upload a tar/gz from my Linux box periodically. It does specifically say that it's not intended to be abused by huge amounts of multimedia content. :)
It also does a good job of comparing the contents of files, so if you have a database or a mail file, it will only upload the blocks of the file that actually change.
Highly recommended. My mother-in-law is even using it over a dial-up modem, and it works great.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Yig-dra-sil. Not difficult at all.
They were my favourite distro until they stopped being a distro. Too bad, they always did neat stuff.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Pardon my spelling. But nobodies been `innovative' enough to correct dab typing yet.
I respect peoples right to make their own decisions, but don't most of the newer Linux folk simply download packaged binaries [or packaged
source] thse days?
Personally, I do. I even keep a text file called `unclean' which lists things that aren't packaged. There's RPMs everywhere [and utils like RPMFind, Helix Update, and autoRPM to help you get them]. While DEBs are a little less popular, most Debian folk I know would prefer to apt-get software than compile it.
I generally use tarballs in an emergency, of when there's something [typically pre 1.0] I really want that nobodies packaged yet [which hasn't
been for eight months].
Having a database of exactly what's installed on my system makes upgrades and finding packages off the net extremely handy. The pre and post install scripts of nearly all RPMS sort out libraries and other stuff. Security stuff is also much easier when you have a list of what's on your system, and can upgrade without breaking something else.
So why do other people prefer to use tarballed source? The vast majority of newer Linux users don't know a language, and while this isn't necessary to hack a makefile or type `./configure', tarballs are still very complicated. Especially when they don't compile correctly.
This isn't a troll - its a query.
They've been quietly chugging away, working consulting gigs up until recently. I think they might have thought that their distribution was more work than it was making them money and discontinued the releases except for subscription users.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Yggdrasil is still alive and kicking in the old area they used to operate from. (Yeah, I know...)
Yggdrasil produced a DVD disk of everything on the Linux and GNU software repositories- while you can pull it off of the 'net, and with xDSL and Cable, it's easy to do so, it's nice to have a DVD or CD of a static image for when you've not got a networked situation.
Yggdrasil handed us an application that allows you to make that magic DLT formatting that a pressing house will only accept to make production DVDs.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
If you bother to scan the kernel archives, you'll see a lot of stuff from @yggdrasil.com.
So, no, they've not been completely in limbo.
--
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.