So I downloaded Linux MINT 15 both 32 and 64 bit ISOs and they are less than 1GB each. Going to place them onto thumb drives to test them out without burning DVD's.
Then it occurred to me that when ISOs were to be squeezed within a 700MB CD-R Disc limitation, it made sense to have 32-bit and 64-bit ISOs seperate.
But ever since CD sized ISOs became a thing of the past for many Linux Distros and both 32 and 64 bit ISOs are generally less than 2.2GB in size... why hasn't anyone combined the installer contents of both 32 and 64 bit ISOs and created single ISO with a pre-installation menu that simply gives you the choice of 32-bit or 64-bit install of the Distro of choice ( or ) 32-bit or 64-bit Live Distro environment selectable upon boot and if no choice is made in 10 seconds it defaults to 32-bit which works with almost all CPUs.
Looking online for info on this I found nothing in relation to making a single Linux ISO with 2 processor type options, but found info on how to join multiple ISOs into one :
http://www.ehow.com/how_5118546_burn-multiple-iso-files.html However the menu option preinstallation, or preboot to the linux live environment to me would have to act like GRUB etc.
Maybe they haven't put any effort into creating this this CPU combo ISO distro because lesser and lesser people are using optical drives and more and more are using flash USB sticks to install from.
To me it just doesnt seem as though doing this would be very difficult to have both versions contained within a single ISO file, although I dont think I'd be able to pull off merging the 2 ISOs myself and adding a bootloader with options into it prior to the 32 or 64 bit OS starting install or live environment. You almost need 3 OS on a single ISO, the 1st OS that gives you the grub like menu, and then that hands you off to 32 bit or 64 bit of which the hand off from this initial OS to the next OS might be tricky.
