HowTo reduce the size of multiple installation sets
to fit them on one CDROM by using red

by Martin Damboldt


Introduction:


This HowTo describes the necessary steps to take to be able to fit for example seventeen OpenOffice installation sets in different languages for Windows which have at all a size of about 920 megabyte on a single 640 MB CD-R.


OpenOffice installation sets of different languages have many equal files included. When you like to put the install sets of seventeen languages for Windows on a single CD you can use red to create links to equal files instead of having them multiple times on the image. The creation of those links can be done by red. Red extracts the content of the “f_” files of installation sets and diff it to each other, then it creates links so that you will have just one real file of each “f_” instead of having them twice or more. Red will do this for all files in the CD image structure you provide, not only for “f_” files.

Since red uses Unix file links this tool runs only on Unix systems. Red can not be used on Windows operating systems. But of course you can create CD's with Windows OpenOffice installation sets on Unix.


A. download necessary files for red

  1. Download the solver tree package for the Unix platform you prefer (Solaris or Linux) you can find it in OOo at Download->Source->Solver: Output Tree


B. prepare the environment for running red

  1. extract the downloaded archiv, for example “Ooo_1.0.1_SolarisSparc_solver.tar.gz”, to a directory of your choice

  2. After this you will have the following structure
    ./solver/641/<platform>/bin/
    ./solver/641/<platform>/lib/
    ./solver/641/<platform>/.......and so on

  3. make sure that you include ./solver/641/<platform>/lib/ path of the structure to you LD_LIBRARY_PATH

  4. set the TEMP and also the TMP variable correctly to a volume which has enough free space


C. prepare the CD structure

  1. create the directory and content structure for the CD you like to create on your harddisk


D. commands for using red

  1. possible command syntax: ./red [-s] [directory] [-t][-v]
    [-s] [directory] delivers the source directory which contains the CD structure which will be modified by red

    [-t] sets red to test mode only, no links will be created but you can see what the result would be

    [-v] activates verbose mode, you can see if red is still running, useful since red takes some time


D. running red

  1. start red: /<red-installation-directory>/red -s <directory-with-CD-content> -v

  2. after you have done this the <directory-with-CD-content> will reflect the new content which might take less space on a CD like it does before since now multiple equal files have been eliminated by creating links


E. create an ISO file with mkisofs of the CD structure

  1. one of the best tools on Unix to create an ISO image file which you can burn on a CD-R is mkisofs to do so use the following command

  2. mkisofs -o <output-directory>/<filename>.iso -V <CD name> -L -l -D -r -v -J -f <directory-with-CD-content>
    for more information about mkisofs please have a look to the man pages

  3. the created ISO file you can be burned to a CD-R with the burning program of your choice