On Mon, 2002-05-13 at 12:44, jason andrade wrote: > On Mon, 13 May 2002, Richard Atterer wrote: > > > I could add an entry to the CD FAQ, if someone can give me a good > > answer to the question... :) > > > > What is a .raw file? > > > > It is exactly the same as an .iso file; you can just rename it to > > .iso and write it to CD-R. We use .raw for beta and unofficial > > images rather than .iso, because... ??? > > A .raw file is a cd image file in a testing release. It is not considered > signed off by the image creator and is made available for beta testing. If > no errors are discovered it is renamed and released as a .iso. If there is > a problem, the cd image is created and rereleased as a .raw. > > Creating this as a .raw extension discourages downloaders from assuming it > is a finished product. IIRC the .raw extension was chosen because xcdroast (or something similar) used that as it's default extension at the time debian-cd (or probably slink-cd) was being written. The .iso extension was chosen for the released CDs because it became apparent that many Windoze programs would choke on .raw file extensions. The released/unreleased thing is a side effect. The main reason I kept the distinction is that the "potato_test" directory tree (which only exists in an attempt to save people running mirrors from wasting bandwidth) might otherwise look like a whole new set of useful .iso images, which people might then waste their time downloading, only to find they are exactly the same as the stuff under the versioned directory. You might think that it would then make sense to call them .iso during the testing phase, and something like .dont-use-these when under the <whatever>_test directory, but the whole point of the filenames is that they don't change between releases, so that rsync knows it should be trying to do a differential download. Did that make any sense? Put simply, some of the time (during beta-testing) things are called .raw for mostly historical reasons on the assumption that anyone who is into beta testing will have worked out that .raw and .iso files are the same thing. At other times (for released files that we are trying to rsync efficiently) the files are called .raw to try and discourage people from bothering with them, when they should be looking at the versioned area instead. It looks like it will all become moot with the new jigdo scheme anyway, because jigdo creates .iso files, and the rsync mirror setup is not really needed any more, so published .raw files are likely to become a thing of the past. Is this an argument for debian-cd to create .iso files by default? Probably. Cheers, Phil. -- Say no to software patents! http://petition.eurolinux.org/ |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND
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