We'll probably see larger ISO images, with the next official release of Ubuntu Yakkety Yak later this year.
Ubuntu Developers are reportedly currently discussing changing the size limit of the distribution's main image, as well as those of the distribution's official flavors.
Ubuntu Studio, for example, plans to increase the size of the installation image to the full size of a 4.7GB DVD, so it can offer a wider range of software out-of-the-box.
Why larger ISO images?
The 1GB that is the current Ubuntu size limit is no longer valid, as recent releases are always larger. The current Ubuntu 16.04 LTS desktop ISO image is 1.4GB, and in some flavors the size is even larger.
Oversized images are quite annoying for people with slow connections. These people annoy developers every day, as Canonical's Steven Langasek explains :
“[Oversized images] generate a lot of emails to the development team and cdimage team members every day, which we then essentially don’t follow up on.”
Langasek continues:
“we will raise the limit for Ubuntu desktop images to 2GB.”
These planned changes will not affect the size of other Ubuntu images, e.g., minimal, server, net install, etc.
If the size limit for the next Ubuntu 16.10 finally reaches 2GB, that doesn't mean the ISO will actually be 2GB. The increase in space will give developers more room, but it won't give them permission to add bloatware.
