[tex-live] (no subject)

[George N. White III]

On Mon, 17 Sep 2018 at 18:20, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:
>
> It's likely we'll remove all 32-bit machines from the DVD image (not
> from TL) next year in order to gain enough space.

My experience has been that it is increasigly hard to find a working
DVD reader.   Many new systems don't have a DVD drive, and when
you do find a DVD drive in an old system it often fails to read your DVD.
I don't know if USB drives fare better in the mails than a DVD (I once
received a DVD in an oversize cardboard envelope that had been
folded to fit in my rural mailbox -- the DVD was neatly split into halves).
DVD's use more power than USB keys so are being left out of systems
being used in remote field sites with limited power.

> I'll change the example platform in the doc when that happens, but
> probably not before. I don't want to unnecessarily churn the
> documentation, implying all translators need to update, etc.
> There is nothing wrong with "i386-linux" as the example, though
> certainly I agree that nowadays "x86_64-linux" is more common.
>
> I think metavariables would be more confusing than helpful to newbies in
> this case. Non-newbies presumably don't have a problem with this simple
> text in any case. Brevity is also important. -k

USB memory keys are replacing DVD's in many use cases.  The extra space
available with USB keys would make it easier to distribute files for
less popular
platforms and eliminate some of the discussions over what to include on a DVD.

-- 
George N. White III