md5sums

[Michael Hipp]

Tom Wilson wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I've always been bad and never really checked the md5sums of iso's I
> download.  Now trying to correct my bad ways, I have been try to
> download the latest version of Mepis for 3 days now from a couple
> different places, via ftp from ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu and via rsync
> from ibiblio.org, I must've download the image 20 times and have yet to
> get one where the iso md5sum matches the md5sum file I download.  
> 
> Is it just horrible luck?  Or do I need to break out the chicken feet? 
> In the grand scheme of things is it that important?

If the isos don't match, you'd normally assume the download failed somehow.

But since you said Mepis, I remember a couple of weeks ago when I 
grabbed their iso, the naming on the download site was somewhat 
confusing. And what I downloaded didn't match the iso. But it was a file 
naming problem and not a download problem.

Are you doing it the "automated" way by doing

mdtsum -c <md5sum file>

or manually by

md5sum whatever.iso

and hand comparing that to the md5sum file. If you're using the 
automated way, it may merely be that the file name in the md5sum file 
doesn't match the iso.

Otherwise, use 'wget' to get the iso. Wget will never let you down. Wget 
is your friend. Don't leave home without it. I have some scripts (that I 
think originally came from David Bandel) if you need them.

Michael