CD/DVD is obsolete or deprecate at 2025?

[Vitold S]

Good news everyone,

Sorry that the question may have already been clarified earlier, but I am
not a regular member of the user mailing list, so I ask it again.

Every time I download the Debian image, I am faced with a moral disorder
and philosophically go on a historical journey into the past, so that I can
remember and dive deeply into memory during the times of using CDs.

Today in my environment I can be faced with a CD only for scaring away
birds or as an intricate amulet on teenagers’ backpacks as a reference to
the era of their parents, but not for recording images. Let's say, is this
my particular progressive experience, or do people still find the discs to
be as functional as ever?

More and more I see that people usually use USB flash drives everyday and
some large companies (like Microsoft) today provide an image with a USB
stick.

Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

Again, forgive me if I don’t know some of the important details and
difficulties of booting modern PCs via UEFI or some other feature more
conveniently solved in the CD/DVD format. Then just tell me about it, I'll
read it.

Thanks.

[e***@gmx.us]

Post by Vitold S
Today in my environment I can be faced with a CD only for scaring away
birds or as an intricate amulet on teenagers’ backpacks as a reference to
the era of their parents, but not for recording images. Let's say, is this
my particular progressive experience, or do people still find the discs to
be as functional as ever?

I have two DVD/CD drives (one reads BD as well) because I often get movies
from the library on DVD, copy them to iso, then parse and transcode to
several mkvs. Yes, this probably makes me a weird. But hey, it suits my
needs. I haven't needed them for another use in ages, however.

--
Since methane is eight times more effective as a greenhouse gas than
carbon dioxide, it is ecologically irresponsible for you to not light
your farts. -- TW in AFCA 12/2012

[Dan Ritter]

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

Several years ago.

https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst

says:

---

You can download a couple of image files of small size, suitable for USB Sticks and similar devices, write them to the media, and then start the installation by booting from that.

There is some diversity in the support for installing from various very small images between the architectures.

For details, please refer to the installation manual for your architecture, especially the chapter "Obtaining System Installation Media".

Here are the links to the available image files (look at the MANIFEST file for information):

amd64 arm64 armhf i386 mips64el ppc64el s390x

[Stefan Monnier]

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on
a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to
change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned
onto optical media.


Stefan

[jeremy ardley]

Post by Stefan Monnier

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on
a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to
change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned
onto optical media.
Stefan

The ISO images will be around for a long time. They are the primary
mechanism of creating virtual machines by attaching virtual drives to a
.iso file and booting.

I noticed that recent windows natively supports .iso format as a form of
archive.

[Detlef Vollmann]

Post by jeremy ardley

Post by Stefan Monnier

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download?  Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on
a USB flash drive.  So I think the question is whether it's time to
change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned
onto optical media.
         Stefan

The ISO images will be around for a long time. They are the primary
mechanism of creating virtual machines by attaching virtual drives to a
.iso file and booting.

And some of the BIOSes of old PCs are not able to boot from USB...

Detlef

[Stefan Monnier]

Post by Detlef Vollmann
And some of the BIOSes of old PCs are not able to boot from USB...

Indeed, tho I suspect those machines are 20 years old or more (at least,
all my machines that are <20 years old support booting from a USB key
drive, while of the two older machines I have (both 21 years old), one
of them doesn't support booting from a USB key (tho it supposedly can
boot from USB floppy)).


Stefan

[Karen Lewellen]

Freely owning I have not followed this entire thread, I simply wish to add
a couple of points.
First, Linux is, or was represented to me, to reflect choices. Those
included many paths to incorporating the system, allowing an individual
to use the equipment they have right now to draw upon Linux.
Second, I have two machines in this room both of which are less than 10
years old, that have cd DVD drives in them, and allow for those boot
choices. after all, one might choose to enjoy music, or a film, without
the need for bondage, and subscription factors, in those formats.
My point is this.
Given how vast the digital divide can be globally, why not insure choices
to accessing Linux in general and Debian particularly?
Just because your machines are 20 years old, does not mean that is the
case
for everyone.
Just my thoughts,

Post by Stefan Monnier

Post by Detlef Vollmann
And some of the BIOSes of old PCs are not able to boot from USB...

Indeed, tho I suspect those machines are 20 years old or more (at least,
all my machines that are <20 years old support booting from a USB key
drive, while of the two older machines I have (both 21 years old), one
of them doesn't support booting from a USB key (tho it supposedly can
boot from USB floppy)).
Stefan

[Dan Ritter]

Nobody is advocating removing the optical disk media options.

There are no plans to do so, that I am aware of.

Planning to do so would not make sense, since the current build
process happily produces images suitable for both optical disks
and USB filesystem devices.

All the discussion has been about documentation changes, to make
it more clear how to use the existing images.


-dsr-

[Thomas Dineen]

No! Some of us want to keep using DVD and not be pushed away

Post by Stefan Monnier

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on
a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to
change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned
onto optical media.
Stefan

[Stefan Monnier]

Post by Thomas Dineen
No! Some of us want to keep using DVD and not be pushed away

In which sense would it push you away.

I'm not suggesting any change to the ISO files themselves.
Only changes to the doc to clarify that these are images that are
expected to be used on USB flash dirves (and they also work on CD/DVD,
including virtual ones for VMs).

The intention is to avoid confusing those users who intuitively skip the
parts talking about CD/DVD images because they don't have a CD/DVD
reader/writer (or don't want to use it).


Stefan

[James H. H. Lampert]

Post by Thomas Dineen
No! Some of us want to keep using DVD and not be pushed away

What he said.

Might I humbly suggest that this whole thread title is provocative,
alarming, and maybe even a little inflamatory?

Some of us still prefer physical media, whether in the form of printed
books, CDs, tapes, DVDs, vinyl, &c. Most of my computers have at least
one drive capable of handling physical media, and most of those that
don't can talk to my USB optical drive. And I regularly "sneakernet"
files between two of them, on a Zip Disk. And my stereo system still has
a CD drive, a CD-R drive, and a tape deck . . . but NOTHING that can
deal with downloaded recordings unless burned onto physical media. And I
LIKE IT THAT WAY.

I will note that when my previous DOSbook failed, I needed PC-DOS 2000
on physical media in order to do the OS-install.

And I'll also note that at present, the Linux subsystem on my Chromebook
is, in a word, hosed, and I blame that on unasked-for "updates" (of
dubious value at best) being foisted upon me.

--
JHHL

[John Hasler]

Post by James H. H. Lampert
Some of us still prefer physical media

Do you mean read-only media? All media are physical.

[James H. H. Lampert]

Post by John Hasler

Post by James H. H. Lampert
Some of us still prefer physical media

Do you mean read-only media? All media are physical.

No, I mean physical media as opposed to downloads.

Application software, I've resigned myself to downloads, although as I
said, I am not happy with software that installs updates of dubious
value without so much as a how-do-you-do.

Even operating systems, when there is no other choice available.

But I prefer my books to be in a form made from an eminently sustainable
and recyclable resource, a form requiring (at least for the sighted) no
auxiliary hardware other than maybe a pair of reading glasses (which I
now need even to read screens). A form that can also be adapted to those
who read with their fingertips. A form that a publisher cannot yank away
from those who paid good money.

As for recorded music and audiovisual content, I again prefer something
that cannot be taken away without physically carrying it off. And I have
the additional objection here that the most common digital music formats
use lossy compression. *VERY* lossy compression. And I find it
thoroughly laughable when vinyl-snobs listen to homemade MP3 dubs of
their records (surface noise, compression artifacts, and all).

But this is veering far off-topic. My previous message was mainly to
point out that the thread title can scare the <censored> out of people,
and seems to have very little to do with what the thread is actually
*about,* i.e., it appears to be about delivery forms other than optical
or magnetic media for OS and application software, and compatibility of
disk-images with those forms. Not about *getting rid of* optical media
(or magnetic media, for that matter).

[Jean-François Bachelet]

Hello ^^)

Post by Stefan Monnier

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on
a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to
change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned
onto optical media.

Just a question : why should we ditch the cd or dvd just because some
guys said that's it was obsolete or inferior to the usb keys et al ?

Memory keys (and ssd and downlodable audio and ...) all have still a
major flaw in regard to hard stuff like CD dvd or real hard disks, and
it's their 'volatility'.

these memory devices just dies on us with their contents (our valuable
or paid for datas, way more often than a hard disk or cd dvd stuff.

and I don't think this will change soon, not where we are now in technology.

btw, the industry pushes forward a total abandon of hard copy of the
stuff we buy with good money, only to ensure that we would buy it again
if it was to disapear 'magically' and the buying contract says so in one
form or another...
Remember the 'robbery' that has occured when buyers of electronic books
found a day that some of their bought books had vanished from their
readers devices 'cause the reseller contract had been broke by the
publisher of the books with some merchants ?

That will be impossible with a real book, or cd, dvd, physical bought
software. (well if your house doesn't catch a fire at least ;))

industry does not want you to own what you pay for in hard form. as well
as banks are pushing to the abandon of physical money (notes or coins)
to have even more control of your hard won money and have you dancing in
their hands...

sorry if it's OT, but just think to all this by yourselves. ^^)

[Stefan Monnier]

Post by Stefan Monnier

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment
will happen?

AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on
a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to
change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned
onto optical media.

Just a question : why should we ditch the cd or dvd just because some guys
said that's it was obsolete or inferior to the usb keys et al ?

AFAICT nobody in this thread suggested to ditch CD or DVD.
Can we stick to the actual discussion, please?


Stefan

[Marco Moock]

Post by Vitold S
More and more I see that people usually use USB flash drives everyday
and some large companies (like Microsoft) today provide an image with
a USB stick.

Most new computers don't have an optical disc drive, customers don't
request it and if they want one, they can buy one and add it.
USB is available every time, thumb disks with 16 GB are available at
the supermarket and can be used for many purposes.

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this
moment will happen?

The images provided are hybrid, they can be used on CD/DVD (if the
image is small enough, e.g. netinstall) or USB thumb disks.
Just write it there using dd.

[Klaus Singvogel]

Post by Marco Moock
Most new computers don't have an optical disc drive, customers don't
request it and if they want one, they can buy one and add it.

I've an optical disc drive with USB connection. I can easily move it to my new / next computer, when I upgrade, and don't need a place in the computer.

I'm still using DVDs to generate bootable Debian discs and install with them my next computer, or use it for the rescue system (rarely).

Best regards,
Klaus.

[Joe]

On Tue, 18 Jun 2024 02:44:46 +0300

Again, forgive me if I don’t know some of the important details and
difficulties of booting modern PCs via UEFI or some other feature more
conveniently solved in the CD/DVD format. Then just tell me about it,
I'll read it.

No, no problems booting UEFI from USB stick. I need to do that to get
back to grub every time I boot Windows on my netbook, which isn't very
often.

[Marco Moock]

Post by Joe
No, no problems booting UEFI from USB stick. I need to do that to get
back to grub every time I boot Windows on my netbook, which isn't very
often.

You should be able to change the boot order in the UEFI setup or inside
of Windows.

[Joe]

On Tue, 18 Jun 2024 12:02:51 +0200

Post by Marco Moock

Post by Joe
No, no problems booting UEFI from USB stick. I need to do that to
get back to grub every time I boot Windows on my netbook, which
isn't very often.

You should be able to change the boot order in the UEFI setup or
inside of Windows.

Yes, I should. But the (Acer) bios switches back to the Windows drive on
startup, and does not honour DefaultBoot. It does recognise NextBoot,
so I have a boot script to set NextBoot in Linux. I can also do it
manually with efibootmgr.

Windows does not have a simple means to set NextBoot, it requires
rebooting into Safe Mode and editing the boot script there. It's
simpler to boot a Debian installer USB to rescue mode and run
efibootmgr from there.

And yes, I've tried all the UEFI fixes and workarounds on the Net, and
none of them work.

[George at Clug]

Post by Vitold S
Good news everyone,
Sorry that the question may have already been clarified earlier, but

I am

Post by Vitold S
not a regular member of the user mailing list, so I ask it again.
Every time I download the Debian image, I am faced with a moral

disorder

Post by Vitold S
and philosophically go on a historical journey into the past, so

that I can

Post by Vitold S
remember and dive deeply into memory during the times of using CDs.
Today in my environment I can be faced with a CD only for scaring

away

Post by Vitold S
birds or as an intricate amulet on teenagers’ backpacks as a

reference to

Post by Vitold S
the era of their parents, but not for recording images. Let's say,

is this

Post by Vitold S
my particular progressive experience, or do people still find the

discs to

Post by Vitold S
be as functional as ever?

If by CD you mean CD/DVD/BD then, I still have use for them in the
following ways...

Post by Vitold S
More and more I see that people usually use USB flash drives

everyday and

Post by Vitold S
some large companies (like Microsoft) today provide an image with a

USB

Post by Vitold S
stick.

1) I use DVD ISO images to create a bootable USB flash drive. Super
easy to do. I do not know how to do this with BD images, so if you do,
please let me know.
# ls -hal /dev/sd*
# cp CentOS-7-x86_64-Everything-2009.iso /dev/sdf

2) While small, I do have a collection of movie CDs, SVCDs, DVDs and
BDs that I can watch. Though to be realistic, I would prefer to have
these as files on the computer.

3) I have a several older computers which have CD/DVD drives by which
I can install from.  However, once again, if find booting from a USB
is usually much easier.

4) I also create Virtual Machines on a regular basis, and use DVD ISO
images to do so. For this I prefer the ease of use of an ISO image.

5) There are some versions of Debian that I keep an entire DVD set of
ISO images, so even when Mirrors are not available, or no longer
supported, I can still build a complete system.

Post by Vitold S
Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other
versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary
download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this

moment

Post by Vitold S
will happen?

While I would prefer not to see CD/DVD/BDs become extinct, it seems to
be inevitable that one day they will. Please do not hasten their
demise.

Post by Vitold S
Again, forgive me if I don’t know some of the important details

and

Post by Vitold S
difficulties of booting modern PCs via UEFI or some other feature

more

Post by Vitold S
conveniently solved in the CD/DVD format. Then just tell me about

it, I'll

Post by Vitold S
read it.
Thanks.

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

1) I use DVD ISO images to create a bootable USB flash drive. Super easy to
do. I do not know how to do this with BD images, so if you do, please let me
know.
# ls -hal /dev/sd*
# cp CentOS-7-x86_64-Everything-2009.iso /dev/sdf

As far as Debian amd64 ISOs are concerned, all first volumes of a media
set have the boot equipment for booting via BIOS and EFI from optical
medium and USB stick.
So the usual ways of plainly copying the image to the base device of the
USB stick will work: cp, dd, Rufus, xorriso-dd-target, ...
Some of them impose the risk to shoot the own foot. In contrast, one can
hardly overwrite the system disk while burning an optical medium.

The biggest available Debian 12.5 amd64 ISO is "DLBD-1" with about 50 GB:
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.jigdo
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.template
It is possible to merge it with DLBD-2 to get an All-in-one ISO.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

[George at Clug]

Post by Thomas Schmitt
Hi,

1) I use DVD ISO images to create a bootable USB flash drive. Super easy to
do. I do not know how to do this with BD images, so if you do, please let me
know.
# ls -hal /dev/sd*
# cp CentOS-7-x86_64-Everything-2009.iso /dev/sdf

As far as Debian amd64 ISOs are concerned, all first volumes of a media
set have the boot equipment for booting via BIOS and EFI from optical
medium and USB stick.
So the usual ways of plainly copying the image to the base device of the
USB stick will work: cp, dd, Rufus, xorriso-dd-target, ...
Some of them impose the risk to shoot the own foot. In contrast, one can
hardly overwrite the system disk while burning an optical medium.
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.jigdo
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.template
It is possible to merge it with DLBD-2 to get an All-in-one ISO.

I have never been able to use .jigdo or understand jigdo, sadly I do not know how to use them. ISOs I understand.

I found this link, but do not understand what it is saying. It suggests "these images may also be written directly to a USB stick" but does not show how to do this.
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-16G/

If you can show the commands that produces a very large ISO from a BD .jigdo file, then that would help.

Something like: (??)

# wget https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.jigdo
# cp https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.jigdo /dev/sdf (but I guess this does not work?)

George.

Post by Thomas Schmitt
Have a nice day :)
Thomas

[Thomas Schmitt]

Hi,

Post by George at Clug
I have never been able to use .jigdo or understand jigdo, sadly I do not
know how to use them. ISOs I understand.

Go by "cd" into a directory where you have enough space to store the
ISO and try this:

https://wiki.debian.org/JigdoOnLive#Download_one_or_more_Jigdo_ISOs

(Ignore the last few sentences about the screensaver of the Debian Live
system, unless you really do this with such a system.)

Possibly it is necessary to install Debian package "jigdo-file":
https://wiki.debian.org/JigdoOnLive#Install_package_jigdo-file

If your Debian is very old, you need to help the program "jigdo-file"
with downloading the .jidgo and .template file:
https://wiki.debian.org/JigdoOnLive#If_needed.2C_work_around_a_shortcoming_of_older_jigdo-lite

The run of jigdo-lite for a 50 GB ISO will last quite some time.
If it aborts (maybe because you decided to abort it) then you may resume
it at any time by going into the same directory and run "jigdo-lite" again
with the same input.

Post by George at Clug
I found this link, but do not understand what it is saying. It suggests
"these images may also be written directly to a USB stick" but does not show
how to do this.
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-16G/

This text appears on all the amd64 pages of
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd
It simply means that you may use the usual methods of putting the ISO
plainly onto the base device file of the USB stick: cp, dd, ...

Post by George at Clug
# cp https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.jigdo
/dev/sdf (but I guess this does not work?)

No, this is too optimistic. :))
But the URL is the answer to one of the three questions by jigdo-lite.

The .jigdo file is mainly a compressed list of packages which the program
"jigdo-lite" shall download and put into the ISO 9660 image framework that
is defined by the .template file.
You can view its cleartext by:
gunzip <debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.jigdo | less
(The prefixes like "Db7HOR6y7sXgB4EdExdZCA=" are used by jigdo-lite to
find the correct destination in the .template file.)

jigdo-lite unpacks the .template file to a holey hull of the .iso.
Then it downloads all the necessary packages to fill the holes in this
hull. When all packages are filled in, the .iso file will be complete
and match its checksum as published in
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/jigdo-dlbd/SHA256SUMS
i.e.
bb72436cede8b59ccca8ba6f802d97ebfd944a87bfc1edb94be361e849545249 debian-12.5.0-amd64-DLBD-1.iso


Have a nice day :)

Thomas