Same wrong md5 checksum 9a5d393482694f398f1172e6f7f49155

[Chris2222]

I'm trying to download knoppix 5.3.1 from mirror ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/ the (California,USA mirror)

If I use any of the http sites it only downloads 144 Mb's

So anyway from the ftp site I drag and drop the file to my documents (a couple of hours later) then use winmd5sum to check. I've tried downloading a couple of times a couple of months apart and the same md5 cheksum 9a5d393482694f398f1172e6f7f49155.

It must be a corrupt file at the website. Or is it the way I'm trying to save it? People have mentioned using Bittorrent is the best way to go maybe that's what i have to do.

If I'm downloading over a network of many computers does that interupt the file during download and cause the errors?

[Harry Kuhman]

First of all, use BitTorrent. Faster. Much more reliable.

As to if the file is corrupt on the mirror, maybe but I very much doubt it. I saw this same problem many many times before BT downloads were available when downloading Knoppix from mirrors (and only when downoading Knoppix, other file downloads have always been fine for me) and did some poking around. I bet that you'll find that the file is of a slightly larger size than it should be. And I bet that if you finally take the advice offered and download a good file with BitTorrent and compare the two file you'll see what's happening if you take the time to do a byte by byte comparison. For some reason that I can't figure out, the mirrors seem to want to treat the ISO file as if it was a text file rather than a binary file, and when they see that you are using a PC, they translate all of the new line characters in the file into CR/LF character pairs for you! So it's absolutely no surprise that someone who uses the same mirror would have the same problem with the same bad checksum, it's much more surprising that someone who got a bad download from a mirror would try to download again from the same mirror, even when they know the waring about not using the mirrors.

[Chris2222]

Thanks. Although I'm kinda leary about using Bittorrents. I got hacked a couple of years ago when I was using Kazaa, so I deleted it and couldn't trust a p2p prog. again.

What's a good bit torrent program nowadays anyway? Is it azureas which is now vuze I believe? I may try it out. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
But it'll take ages for me at home to download it at 24kb/s. Should take me what? About 40 days of straight downloading for the DVD version. Regardless I may give it a shot or I might soon sign up for high speed. Although the internet's been getting kind of bare lately, so I'm not sure if it's really worth it.

Anyways I was downloading this file at work through the network, so I'm not sure if work administrators had anything else to do with the md5 not matching up or not. We're prohibited to use bittorrents at work anyway and so that's why I was using ftp.

Again thanks for your help. And if you could point me to a good torrent program that I should use, then great!

Now what about linux torrents vs. windows torrents? Any one more secure or "better" than the other?

[Harry Kuhman]

BitTorrent isn't Kazaa and I think you'll find a completely different culture around the Knoppix torrents. But if you have any reservations, use an open source client that many people have had the chance to look over and be sure that no hacks have been made. You certainly should find though that only your downloaded segments of the Knoppix files can be shared, no other files, and that anything you download has to be safe since no one user can slip in a bogus file because of the way that file segments are tested.

All in all, BT is still a far better choice for downloading, even for dial-up users, since it does a lot to prevent corrupt files (even can correct some corrupt downloads) and it can very cleanly be stopped and restarted. But to get good performance you need a few firewall rules that your employer will not put in place. But if I was still using last millenium's networking technology and wanted an DVD size file downloaded, I would consider finding a friend who had high speed access and offer to make him a Knoppix DVD too in return for the use of his bandwidth to download. The difference between 40 days and 2 or 3 hours is pretty significant.

If you're really paranoid about P2P, consider either using an old dedicated system to download the file (but make sure that it has the NTFS file system, the ISO will not fit on a FAT partition), or install software like VMPlayer and run BitTorrent in a virtual machine where things can be safely contained (in the interest of full disclosure, I've never configured a VMWare system for BitTorrent use. While you have to be sure that the client can accept incoming connections, I expect that this can cleanly be done and should not be a significant issue, if it is an issue at all.)


With the loss of Usenet, the Internet may not have much to justify large expense. Depends on your interests. But if you're paying for dial-up, you might want to look into low cost options. I could now actually get "DSL Lite" or, if I had the local cable, the lowest rung of cable Internet access, for significantly less that I paid for monthly dial-up in the 90's. There are a few dial-up services around claiming somewhat lower cost service, but not by much, and the merits of not fighting your way into modem pools and not locking up your telephone line for hours at a time when on line go a long way to justify even what we pay in the USA for low end 24/7 Internet access. DSL lite would take a bit longer to get the Knoppix DVD iso, but not an unreasonable amount, particularly when you can do it in the background.

[Chris2222]

Thanks, I really appreciate your input. I have played around with the knoppix live cd version, I was able to download that one no problem and I used an old P3 to check it out. I could probably use that machine to see how the torrents work but I'm not sure it has a modem.

Using VMWare maybe, I've heard of it but I've never used it. It's an interesting idea. I'll look into it a little more.

Otherwise I'll have to see if someone can download it for me. It would be nice to have a look at what's in the knoppix 5.3.1 even see what's available in the 5.1.1 dvd version. Are there any packages in 5.1.1 that's not in the new 5.3.1?

I'm noticing some legality issues with older packages and with the upcoming lawyers GPL conference in London Sept 24. There may be a storm cloud brewing for the free availability of linux operating systems. Perhaps a new post is needed for this as I'm sure every linux user should be interested or concerned with what happens at this conference.

[Harry Kuhman]

.... Are there any packages in 5.1.1 that's not in the new 5.3.1? ....

I have not looked that closely. I can tell you that the 5.3.1 menus are pretty bad and an awful lot of stuff ended up in lost and found or otherwise hard to find; I thought a lot was missing but another user pointed out the menu problem. 5.1.1 should still be on the mirrors though, at least some of them. and if you can find it you should be able to download the package list text file (even on dial-up) and then grab the same 5.3.1 file and make the comparison yourself. With some BitTorrent clients there are even ways to give priority to this file over others in the torrent, which would let you download this file and then just abort the rest of the download, but grabbing these files is a valid use of the mirrors (and should be free of the binary corruption problem that I have observed).