We’ve all heard the “my 100TB NAS is full of Linux ISOs” joke but how many of you actually hoard ISOs? I just noticed I have ~100GB, so not that many though definitely way more than I need (I just like to try new distros on my VMs and I never delete them after).
Currently, just 6, Proxmox, Nixos, and 2 each, Ubuntu Server and Kubuntu.
When we moved last year we went on a massive cleaning purge throwing away anything we didn’t need or want and I included digital files in that. I went from 68TB used down to about 20TB.
From memory, I had just about every Ubuntu server release since 2008 in both x86-64,and ARM roughly a dozen releases of Kubuntu, a couple copies of Knoppix, Gentoo, Silverblue, RHEL, Fedora, plus about 20 other random isos from when I was distro hopping, before I settled on Ubuntu and NixOS.
I think the isos added up to 15 or 20TB of what I deleted, the rest was just random junk I thought I might need, but based on access dates, never did.
The oldest iso I deleted (based on timestamps) was a copy of Windows 98, circa 2004
That’s a crazy amount of clean-up, impressive. I find it’s hard to delete even just 10% of my collection, and you did like 70%
Yes.
I have a small 32GB VenToy drive filled with a bunch of distros that I keep updated to a somewhat regular degree (Fedora Workstation and KDE, Mint, EndeavourOS, CachyOS, Bazzite Deck, and Pop! OS for a mix of different DEs)
I keep it around in case anybody is interested in installing Linux, it makes it effortless (no need to go download the ISO file from the website and flash it, removing a barrier of entry). I have used it exactly once, and I’m hoping I can use it again for somebody else!
My husband’s response: all of them
I thought that was a euphemism for porn.
I’m not that into Linux yet
About a dozen.
I don’t really hoard them. I keep a collection of ISOs on a 16 GB Ventoy drive, but that’s not a lot.
I just checked. In me archive directory in
OperatingSystemsI’ve got a total of 40 files. However, now I remember I should delete so many of them as they are outdated or not needed anymore. Also not all of them are Linux ISOs. ~10 of them are BSDs.26 after deletion.
6 BSD 1 Android x86 1 visopsys
Wait, are we talking Linux ISOs or “Linux ISOs”?
I only keep one example of stuff that works for specific devices. Ubuntu 14.04+mac for early Macintels, Linux Mint Debian 32-bit for systems that can’t do 64, evrrything else, latest Mint Debian or Fedora KDE.
I only happen to save ISOs if I find them on old drives during cleanup. Despite this, I do have 49 Linux ISOs and one FreeNAS ISO too. I don’t have a reason to delete them; I am not short of space.
I keep about 55GB of system ISOs on my server, as an archive. 28GB out of that are w*nodes ISOs. Most of these are the ISOs I regularly use or are hard to find (like win11 old enough to make a local account, Orange Pi Zero 3 proprietary Linux image, etc)
I also seed a few of armbian and proxmox images, so that would be another 50GB.
And I have a 128GB Ventoy USB thumbdrive which is almost half full with ISOs, most of which are Linux
I’ll be staying with win10 ltsc on VMs for as long as I can manage, but most are on a flavour of Linux
Currently have 12 ISOs, 25 GB worth. Same reason, trying them out in a VM and just keep them around.
Isos all go on a flash drive. When I need one it’s faster to download a current version than it would be to update the old version after installing.
sometimes a program I use doesn’t work on the latest version and I have to revert. Sometimes I realize this so late the older version isn’t available online anymore. Has this happened often enough to warrant 100 GB of ISOs? Definitely not 😅
Only 100? That’s like 20 ISOs.
too true o the download a current version. and every so often I do clean them all up except the old BSD and BeOS type ones
Only the ones I use on a USB stick with Ventoy.
Pretty much the same, until the middle fell out of my keychain usb drive
Same, Ventoy is so fucking good. My answer is two, I guess. All my computers are either running Mint or CachyOS.
