Bug 768181

Summary:	pxeboot initrd image is getting larger and larger
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Dimitrios Apostolou <jimis>
Component:	anaconda	Assignee:	Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	16	CC:	anaconda-maint-list, jonathan, mgracik, vanmeeuwen+fedora
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Hardware:	Unspecified
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2011-12-16 11:56:25 UTC	Type:	---
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Dimitrios Apostolou 2011-12-15 23:22:04 UTC

While trying to boot using the ISO image from BFO (boot.fedoraproject.org), the installer was stuck at "Loading initrd..." for about 20min before I quit. It is obvious that with BFO you have to download everything, but it makes it unusable if you have to wait that long before even starting the installer. 

Checking the pxeboot images we can see that the sizes are growing alarmingly:
See http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/16/Fedora/i386/os/images/pxeboot/

F14: 30MB
F15: 94MB
F16: 130MB


Any idea why they are getting that large? I believe that a maximum size of 50MB would be sane, for the usability of BFO. After starting the installation and  choosing the mirrors downloads can be much larger, since they are faster and the process is automated.

Comment 1 Martin Gracik 2011-12-16 11:56:25 UTC

The initrd.img in f15 and f16 also contains the stage 2 install image, that's why it is bigger. Before it was divided to two files, the 2nd install.img was 150MB in size.

Comment 2 Dimitrios Apostolou 2011-12-16 16:49:22 UTC

So how much should the user (given that he is on a fast network) wait before being prompted from the installer? Fact is that BFO images are largely unusable because of this, at least if you are away from redhat servers. We should at least have a dialog for setting up the mirror before downloading that large images.

I'd say this is still a bug, can we reopen it?