[tex-live] So far.....expensive failure

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2013-02-13 at 20:03:21 +0100, Andreas Hirsch wrote:

 > I recommend to use the netinstaller:
 > http://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html

This is the preferred way to install TeX Live and it's recommended by
the documentation at http://tug.org .

I'm amazed to see that so many people download the ISO image even
if they don't know what it is and what's good for.

The ISO image causes a lot of unnecessary network traffic.  Many
people download it but then don't know what to do with it.  They cause
an enourmous amount of network traffic and waste a lot of time.  And
those who succeed to install from the ISO image cause a lot of
unnecessary network traffic when they update the system.

In order to disburden the CTAN servers, attempts has been made to make
the ISO image available by peer-to-peer networks.  However, I don't
know what it's good for.  The point is that nobody needs the ISO image.
And nobody installs a peer-to-peer client if the file can be
downloaded conveniently from CTAN.

As Andreas suggested, the preferred way is to use the network
installer.  The advantage is that it installs an up-to-date TeX Live
with binaries for your system, the ISO image contains a lot of ancient
stuff and provides binaries for all platforms supported by TeX Live.

Since the documentation at http://tug.org is obviously insufficient
(it doesn't prevent people from downloading the useless ISO image), 
I suggest to

  * remove links to the ISO image from http://tug.org web pages.
    It shouldn't be mentioned at all.

  * remove the ISO image from CTAN.

Those few souls who really need it will find it in the "historic"
directory on the TUG FTP server.

There is absolutey no need to advertise the ISO image in any way.
Actually nobody needs it.  There is no reason to make it available via
CTAN because nobody needs it.

As I said before, it's amazing to see how many people download the
huge ISO image and throw it away because clicking on it under Windows
doesn't yield what they ecpect.

What is the rationale to have the ISO image on CTAN?

Regards,
  Reinhard 

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
Marschnerstr. 25
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Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO.
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