release: Remove KDE from dvd1.iso

[cperciva]

Summary

Prior to this commit, we were shipping 2155 MB of packages (from the
ports tree, not counting pkgbase) on dvd1.iso. Due to the amount of
space required by shipping pkgbase packages *and* distribution sets
on the DVD images, we only have 1696 MB available if we want to fit
into the 4.7 GB limit for DVDs. Many users have indicated that this
is indeed important.

It is practically impossible to hit this target without removing KDE;
while KDE and its dependencies narrowly fit (1550 MB), we exceed the
limit as soon as we include either of freebsd-doc-all or gnome. While
we would pick KDE over GNOME (surveys regularly indicate that KDE is
the more widely used of the two), we believe that documentation is the
most important thing to include.

MFC after: 2 days (for 15.0-RC3)

[mark_freebsdfoundation.org]

Colin, although I wouldn't pick KDE myself, I can't help but think since it's the desktop of choice in the upcoming addition to the installer (Alfonso's work) wouldn't it be more prudent to remove *all other* DEs/WMs from the DVD image (since they're all smaller anyway) and have just KDE on the DVD image? "You can't keep all the people happy all the time", but if we've settled on one DE [for starters] for the installer add on, I can't help thinking it would be useful for that desktop to be in the DVD image :)

[vvd]

IMHO, remove x11/gnome and keep x11/kde.

[adamw]

I'm a big fan of being able to provide both KDE and gnome. How much would switching from gnome to gnome-lite save us?

If we do drop KDE (or gnome), and you're looking for other packages to add, I'd strongly advise adding vim ± emacs. If I'm building a new system, the first thing I want is a better editor than nvi.

[adamw]

In D53800#1228648, @mark_freebsdfoundation.org wrote:

Colin, although I wouldn't pick KDE myself, I can't help but think since it's the desktop of choice in the upcoming addition to the installer (Alfonso's work) wouldn't it be more prudent to remove *all other* DEs/WMs from the DVD image (since they're all smaller anyway) and have just KDE on the DVD image? "You can't keep all the people happy all the time", but if we've settled on one DE [for starters] for the installer add on, I can't help thinking it would be useful for that desktop to be in the DVD image :)

Nothing in there is incorrect, but the point isn't to have fully-functional DE after installation so much as it is to give end-users a functional system from which they can bootstrap their real DE.

I'd actually advocate strongly for xfce for that reason. Save even more space; give users a fast, stable, lightweight and fully-functional environment that will work smoothly on more modest systems than gnome can; and provide the simplest way for end-users to bootstrap any other DE.

[mark_freebsdfoundation.org]

In D53800#1228729, @adamw wrote:

In D53800#1228648, @mark_freebsdfoundation.org wrote:

Colin, although I wouldn't pick KDE myself, I can't help but think since it's the desktop of choice in the upcoming addition to the installer (Alfonso's work) wouldn't it be more prudent to remove *all other* DEs/WMs from the DVD image (since they're all smaller anyway) and have just KDE on the DVD image? "You can't keep all the people happy all the time", but if we've settled on one DE [for starters] for the installer add on, I can't help thinking it would be useful for that desktop to be in the DVD image :)

Nothing in there is incorrect, but the point isn't to have fully-functional DE after installation so much as it is to give end-users a functional system from which they can bootstrap their real DE.

I'd actually advocate strongly for xfce for that reason. Save even more space; give users a fast, stable, lightweight and fully-functional environment that will work smoothly on more modest systems than gnome can; and provide the simplest way for end-users to bootstrap any other DE.

Yes Adam. Personally, I choose FreeBSD for its 'lightness', and prefer to build desktops the same. But again, speaking pragmatically, the choice has been made and KDE is it. So to cut it from the DVD is, IMHO, the wrong direction to take — speaking pragmatically and completely detached from my own sentiments. See the latest video on the FreeBSD YT channel, where I cover Alfonso's work on the installer updates.

[arrowd]

There is nothing to discuss:

It is practically impossible to hit this target without removing KDE;

And a proper fix for this problem is getting rid of two llvms in deps, getting rid of qt5, decoupling gcc runtime from the compiler itself and splittting texlive stuff into multiple packages. The latter two items require subpackages.

[adamw]

This was good info, everyone. Thank you, I learned a lot about the context here!

So to summarize: general consensus is that it'd be better to have KDE in the installer, so the KDE team should probably look into trimming it down for next time. For now, we have to stick with gnome, which is perfectly fine for providing end-users a means to bootstrap their DE of choice.

In that, I'm 👍 for this patch.

I do think that we should prioritize tools that help people do that initial bootstrapping and configuration, so for that reason I request editors/vim (the default console-only should be fine) and editors/emacs (in case people want to use the wrong editor).

[cperciva]

In D53800#1228648, @mark_freebsdfoundation.org wrote:

Colin, although I wouldn't pick KDE myself, I can't help but think since it's the desktop of choice in the upcoming addition to the installer (Alfonso's work) wouldn't it be more prudent to remove *all other* DEs/WMs from the DVD image (since they're all smaller anyway) and have just KDE on the DVD image? "You can't keep all the people happy all the time", but if we've settled on one DE [for starters] for the installer add on, I can't help thinking it would be useful for that desktop to be in the DVD image :)

If "remove GNOME in order to keep KDE" was an option I would 100% go with that.

But the the choice is actually "remove GNOME *and freebsd-doc* in order to keep KDE".

[mark_freebsdfoundation.org]

In D53800#1228847, @cperciva wrote:

In D53800#1228648, @mark_freebsdfoundation.org wrote:

Colin, although I wouldn't pick KDE myself, I can't help but think since it's the desktop of choice in the upcoming addition to the installer (Alfonso's work) wouldn't it be more prudent to remove *all other* DEs/WMs from the DVD image (since they're all smaller anyway) and have just KDE on the DVD image? "You can't keep all the people happy all the time", but if we've settled on one DE [for starters] for the installer add on, I can't help thinking it would be useful for that desktop to be in the DVD image :)

If "remove GNOME in order to keep KDE" was an option I would 100% go with that.

But the the choice is actually "remove GNOME *and freebsd-doc* in order to keep KDE".

*nod* I get you @cperciva

Apologies for asking what might be a daft question then — but removing www/firefox, x11/gnome and x11-wm/sway doesn't make KDE fit, does it? (the question might be daft as I'm guessing you've tried umpteen permutations to make this work).

[cperciva]

In D53800#1228878, @mark_freebsdfoundation.org wrote:

In D53800#1228847, @cperciva wrote:

But the the choice is actually "remove GNOME *and freebsd-doc* in order to keep KDE".

*nod* I get you @cperciva

Apologies for asking what might be a daft question then — but removing www/firefox, x11/gnome and x11-wm/sway doesn't make KDE fit, does it? (the question might be daft as I'm guessing you've tried umpteen permutations to make this work).

Correct. KDE + freebsd-doc is already too big even if we remove everything else on the list. In fact everything aside from KDE/freebsd-doc/GNOME is small enough that it never affects whether we fit into 4.7 GB.

[adamw]

In D53800#1228878, @mark_freebsdfoundation.org wrote:

Apologies for asking what might be a daft question then — but removing www/firefox, x11/gnome and x11-wm/sway doesn't make KDE fit, does it? (the question might be daft as I'm guessing you've tried umpteen permutations to make this work).

Even if it did, shipping without a browser or a lightweight alternative to a full DE to fit KDE on would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces. I urge everyone to remain user-centered: when a generic end-user wants to bootstrap a FreeBSD system, they need to boot into SOMETHING where they can run the commands they need to install the system they wanted in the first place.

pkg install kde is perfectly fine to ask users to do.

Shipping without a browser would be a big mistake.

End users need (what else am I missing here?):

• A terminal emulator
• Documentation
• A browser to read the documentation in (or look stuff up)
• A modern shell
• A modern editor
• Access to our VCS

Currently, @cperciva's proposal provides every one of those (except for the editor(s)). Again, it's not about giving users the full DE they want out of the box--that's not possible today. @arrowd listed out what would need to happen first, and that's not feasible for this release.

[adamw]

In D53800#1228881, @cperciva wrote:

KDE + freebsd-doc is already too big even if we remove everything else on the list.

Then there's not much left to discuss 😄 . You gotta do what you gotta do here.

The release notes could alert users that they'll need to pkg install kde if they want it. It's a change that will surprise some users, but they'll still have a working DE that they can install KDE trivially from, and SDDM should pick it up right away.

@cperciva If you add vim and emacs, I'd happily give an approval from the ports side of things. (I'm no longer on portmgr, so not sure how much my +1 is worth to you.)

[vvd]

What compression do you use?
pkg create firefox => 73056762
pkg create -f txz -T 1 -l 9 firefox => 66061788
It's ~9.6% diff.

[cperciva]

In D53800#1228929, @vvd wrote:

What compression do you use?
pkg create firefox => 73056762
pkg create -f txz -T 1 -l 9 firefox => 66061788
It's ~9.6% diff.

We don't use any compression on the DVD. We take whatever pkg.freebsd.org gives us.

Recompressing these sounds like it might be a good idea, but that's not something I'm going to land right before the release.

[cperciva]

In D53800#1228896, @adamw wrote:

@cperciva If you add vim and emacs, I'd happily give an approval from the ports side of things. (I'm no longer on portmgr, so not sure how much my +1 is worth to you.)

I don't think anyone else has suggested adding anything, so I'm happy to do this. Which ports exactly do you want added?

[adamw]

In D53800#1229686, @cperciva wrote:

In D53800#1228896, @adamw wrote:

@cperciva If you add vim and emacs, I'd happily give an approval from the ports side of things. (I'm no longer on portmgr, so not sure how much my +1 is worth to you.)

I don't think anyone else has suggested adding anything, so I'm happy to do this. Which ports exactly do you want added?

I'm torn based on whether it's better to have console-only (so that people who are doing a simple bootstrap don't need to drag in X) or whether it's better to have full features out-of-the-box.

Console-only would be editors/vim and editors/emacs@nox. With full GUI would be editors/vim@gtk3 and editors/emacs. With space no longer a concern, you could supply all 4 packages so that users can choose what kind of bootstrap they are looking for. I don't feel strongly in either direction, but maybe others do?

Edit: It's important to consider that if all four are provided, vim and vim-gtk3 conflict, as do emacs and emacs-nox. So, it'd be possible for users to choose a non-installable set of packages.

[adamw]