Re: jigdo newbie question
* Richard Lyons <richard@the-place.net> [061109 09:00]:
> I need a complete etch dvd set for a location that has no inet.
...
> It downloaded stuff - as far as I could see in batches of ten files -
> for about four hours, then said
> Aaargh - 288 files could not be downloaded. This should not
> happen! Depending on the problem, it may help to retry downloading
> the missing files.
...
> My questions to all you jigdo-familiars are
> - Is this a common problem?
It happens, but infrequently.
> - Perhaps there is an easy solution?
It sounds as if you have an old version of jigdo, or perhaps that you
managed to select a corrupted repository.
First try upgrading jigdo. I recommend Synaptic for keeping your
system up-to-date.
> - What is the advantage of jigdo? As far as I can see it
> downloads at pretty much a normal speed, using a single connection
> to a single mirror.
An ISO image is about 700 megabytes, whether you download it as a
monolith or as a set of individual files; jigdo can't change that.
Jigdo downloads individual files and from them creates a binary
image. If the download is interrupted, jigdo can resume, and even can
salvage partial files. But if you are downloading a monolithic ISO
image and something goes wrong at the tail end of the download, you
may need to begin again, and lose the partial image.
Jidgo typically is able to salvage a partial image such as you have;
simply change the mirror and run jigdo again (unless you already have
deleted the temporary files which jigdo creates).
Jidgo is able to utilize files from an existing ISO image (when
mounted with the "loop" option) or from CDs. So you can update the
image you download today, and jidgo downloads only the files which
have changed.
A neat trick is to use jigdo to download DVD images, rather than CD
images, even if your need is for CDs and even if you do not have a DVD
burner. In a full set, there are only three DVD images, but there are
15 CD images, so the matter of logistics is simplified; in particular,
with the larger DVD image, you can start the download, go to bed, and
not have to get up every hour or two to start a new download. Then,
after the download, run jigdo again to create CDs, mounting the DVD
images with the "loop" option. Jidgo then is able to find all the
files it needs from the DVD, so the process goes quickly.
RLH
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