Quote Originally Posted by otropogo View Post
Corrupted copy of K7.2 en DVD on kernel.org?

I set Seamonkey to download the 3.8 GB ....
I'd like to avoid having this happen again, ....
Before the Torrents were available I had about 50% bad downloads of the Knoppix ISO when using a browser. Including my very first Knoppix download. I tracked down that problem and it is an issue with some Linux based servers treating the file as a text file rather than a binary file and doing a translation on it, but that doesn't seem to be the problem here. But the important thing is that once the torrents started to become available, I never had to download with a browser again. I've had error free downloads since. My downloads are much much faster. And I've even been able to help people repair flawed downloads by restarting the torrent client and let it quickly repair the download by just bringing down a few needed parts (the poor guy had stopped his download as soon as the client reported 100% rather then letting the download finish cleanly, otherwise he would not have had a problem either).

BitTorrent clients are not only for illegal things, they can be quite useful for valid downloads such as Knoppix too. It should take only a few minutes to learn to set up a torrent client, far less time than time lost when you have to deal with a bad or aborted browser download. You get that time back with a much faster download. And torrent downloads can be stopped and restarted at any time. I never use "download managers", those things are more trouble than they are worth and often bring in unwelcome problems hidden in the applications. For best performance with a torrent client it can be helpful to forward an incoming port range on your router. (You are using a router, aren't you? Not using one is dangerous, nearly insane.) If you're unclear about what forwarding ports means than that will cost you a few more minutes to research and learn, but it will make the downloads go even faster and it will enhance your understanding of Internet protocols, and will be good knowledge for far more than just this.

To avoid problems like this, I strongly suggest that you use a torrent client and download Knoppix with the posted torrent links rather than taking it from any mirror server. Torrents add extra error checking (so much so that I don't even bother to do the MD5 check any more, although in all honesty it is still a good quick check to avoid making a coaster). If you do get a bad block of a file they will detect it and repair it automagically. You can shut down the download at any time, and when restarting it will check what you have and only download missing parts or parts that need repaired. You can ever pull off some tricks moving around files and use a torrent client to repair a bad download that originally came in through a browser, but it is far better to just use the torrent client for Knoppix downloads in the first place. Torerents avoid bottlenecks from a single source, they get you parts from all over the globe, so you can be downloading the files much faster than from a single source. back in the days of the Knoppix CD I used to have to search several servers before I could even find one where the estimated download time was less than 24 hours, my first Knoppix CD torrent download took me about 2 hours. And speeds have greatly improved since then.

Sure, some of you have not used a torrent in the past and it is slightly outside your "comfort level". Wasn't Knoppix or Linux new to you at some point too? Don't cripple yourself by sticking with a bad tool that doesn't do the job well when there are good tools available and people will to help you learn how to use them. Or, if you want to stay with the "I just want to download with my browser" mentality, then maybe Windows is a better choice for you.

By the way, typically when I see an error that talks about a file as large as a DVD ISO downloading but then showing up as a file smaller than 2 gig. it usually turns out to be a file size problem with either the application of the file system. Modern torrent clients have no problem with crossing this size barrier. So as long as you are not downloading to a file system that can't deal with files larger than 2 gig then just try using a torrent client and see if it isn't a lot better.

The Knoppix torrent tracker is here:
http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/
and the torrents include all of the extra handy files like the md5 check sum and text documents, no need to track them down later.