Minimal Install Media... is there any?

[adam.ec]

I live in a country where 1Mbit broadband is a premium service for large businesses. I am paying a little over $40 a month for a 128k connection with monthly capping. I want to download Fedora but the download is just huge for my connection, especially as it is used for work 14 hours a day. I have attempted the LiveCD and got the 'ext4 cannot be used for boot' error. I also have several other specialised distros on this machine and it's going to be a pain inserting a new boot partition just for Fedora.

Like it is possible with Slackware, can I just download the first CD of the Fedora 11 set and get a minimal install from this or does Fedora need the whole set of disks?

Is there a simple enough net install option that I could use instead?

I can't understand why they can't just release something like Ubuntu's alternate install CD.

Thank you in advance anyway.

[sideways]

You can use an existing boot partition.

[bob]

The Live CD has an installer.

[Dan]

With bandwidth caps, this may be an option worth considering.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distri.../OnlineVendors

[bartios]

There also is the net install cd.
http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/11/

[mohaas05]

You could try the media request queue...if its still open.

[sonoran]

Originally Posted by adam.ec

Is there a simple enough net install option that I could use instead?

Yes, as mohaas05 said, there is a netinst.iso which is 157 mb - look for it at your closest mirror under the /iso part - of course it will need to be on the net to do the install

[CiaW]

I posted a message over the weekend about my issues with attempting the net install (and I have a 256k dsl connection) -- first it wrote the changes to my partition scheme right after setting it up, rather than after selecting packages and then it couldn't find the repository -- including some that I know had a repomd.xml file in the path I typed in when I tried the edit option.

Since there are threads about yum updates not being available, etc. it may be that the repository issue is valid, I don't know.

However, if you have bandwidth issues then netinstall is going to download whatever packages you select to install, so 'only' downloading that disk isn't going to help with the bandwidth caps -- but at least it won't require updates afterward (I think?) which was the draw for me to attempt it.

It may depend on what you're planning to install, etc.

Here's the thread from my weekend saga, if you're interested:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=223740

[scottro]

One thing I discovered (Thanks Rupert!), is that you can download just the first CD. During installation, uncheck everything, including base. (If you don't uncheck base, it will ask you for other CDs).


Then, you'l have a base, text only system. You can then add from there.

It's probably the closest to a minima install that's available. (One could do the same with a net install, of course, but I think this would be faster.)

[sonoran]

Originally Posted by CiaW

Here's the thread from my weekend saga, if you're interested:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=223740

Thanks for the warning. I have a working F11 updated since Alpha, but I want another one to enable Rawhide on and thought I would try the netinst.iso. I haven't had any updates in quite a while for F11 and have been following that issue also. Problems...problems...

I have a free evening, I'll try the net install with my fingers crossed - but if it starts going wrong at least I won't waste a lot of time trying to fix it. Thanks again.

[sidebrnz]

Of course, you could always buy the media: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Distri.../OnlineVendors