For Ubuntu Studio the size does matter

The first Linux distributions came on a floppy disk. Then came the CD bringing us the Live distributions. Devedé would later become the preferred format. Although most of us switched to pen drives as installation media, the 4,7 GB limit of the devedé seemed to be enough. But not anymore.

Ubuntu Studio, the distribution derived from Ubuntu focused on multimedia production, she has a size problem and she is not the only one. In fact, the Windows 10 iso image that I am downloading as I write this article is 5.2 GB in size.

Why does size matter for Ubuntu Studio?

Erich Eickmeyer, leader of the Ubuntu Studio project tells what the problem isa on the Ubuntu developer mailing list

The problem I see is that the ISO 9660 specification, the standard that all our ISO images are built on, has a hard limit of 4096 MB by file size. In our case, the size of the squashfs file (Editor's Note: This is the compressed file system that includes everything needed for the installation) exceeds that. This is resulting in failed builds.

Eickmeyer has a solution;

However, there is another ISO format that works for DVDs: ISO 13346, also known as UDF. This allows virtually unlimited file size. This would be preferable and on behalf of Ubuntu Studio we request this change if possible, or even an alternative. I realize this is short notice before the beta, but we don't have much choice as the amount I have to remove basically defeats Ubuntu Studio's reason for existence in the sense that we have to severely limit the amount of tools we can carry. It seems that Ubuntu Kylin shares our situation.

The problem seems to be not only with Ubuntu Studio

• Ubuntu: 1.9GB
• Ubuntu: 2.4GB
• Ubuntu Budgie: 2.7GB
• Ubuntu: 1.9GB
• Ubuntu: 2.4GB
• Ubuntu Budgie: 2.7GB
• Free MATE: 2.8GB
• Free (GNOME): 3.3GB
• Ubuntu: 3.5GB
• Ubuntu Kylin: 3.9GB
• Ubuntu Studio: 4.0GB

Next comes a stick for the developers of the parent distribution.

KDE Plasma (Kubuntu) is taking up so much space that it leaves us with very little. This wasn't a big deal at first, butor as soon as we installed Firefox in Snap format, it became a reality, taking up a whopping 156 MB of compressed space. if not more. If the trend continues and more apps turn to the Snap format, we can only expect this to grow, meaning ISO 9660 is no longer a viable option for anyone.

Steve Langasek, Debian and Ubuntu developer, responded with a workaround:

If Ubuntu Studio decides that they don't care if the image fits on a DVD, they can simply increase the size limit. But in that case, I think we should stop calling the constructed image itself "a devedé" and also stop constructing images suitable for optical media.

However, there seems to be other problems, Eric responds to Steve's email saying:

We have discussed going with the image solution for the USB stick. However, what prompted this
This is because not only do we get the image oversize warning, but also because the images are simply copies of the 20220322 image and are not updated during the build. I thought this was due to the large size warning. Either way, this is very worrying as
we are unable to properly test builds due to a fixed bug related to automount conflicting with Calamares (Editor's Note: The alternative installer used by Kubuntu and Ubuntu Studio).

It would really be a shame if Ubuntu Studio had to leave the KDE desktop. As I wrote in this blog, the integration they achieved is perfect. In fact, I'm using the Daily version of Ubuntu Studio 22.04 to write this. In any case, it is true that there are things that could be eliminated. It is not justified that LibreOffice comes installed by default in a distribution focused on multimedia production.

Actualización

The issue that prevented the compilation of new images has been fixed. At the same time, Erich Eickmeyer confirmed that Ubuntu Studio abandons the devedé as support and goes to the pendrive.