[drane@x5ca.net: CD Images FAQ -- MD5 Sums + Windows]

[Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr>]

----- Forwarded message from Arden Spiller <drane@x5ca.net> -----

Delivery-date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 22:49:31 +0100
X-Envelope-Sender: drane@x5ca.net
Date: Sat, 03 Nov 2001 15:41:14 -0500
To: debian-www@lists.debian.org
From: Arden Spiller <drane@x5ca.net>
Subject: CD Images FAQ -- MD5 Sums + Windows

http://cdimage.debian.org/faq.html

	I'd like to suggest a change to the CD Images FAQ.  It might reflect that 
people using Windows may have some trouble checking MD5 sums, even on a 
perfectly fine CD.  Here's my story:

	I am using Windows 95 (for now).  I don't have access to a working Linux 
box (yet).  I downloaded an image from one of the Debian mirrors, then 
downloaded a copy of md5sum.exe (from elsewhere) and checked the MD5 
sum.  It matched.
	I looked up several sets of instructions on how to burn an ISO9660 image 
using Nero, including yours.  However, each time I burned a CD I got the 
same thing.  When I checked the MD5 sum (in Windows) using:
md5sum --check md5sum.txt
it found that numerous files failed.  The majority of the files did pass, 
though.  Upon closer investigation, many (or possibly all?) of the files 
that failed had sizes of 0 bytes.  I eventually started to get suspicious 
and thought that the CD might be fine, but that those particular files may 
be unreadable (for some good reason) under Windows.
	After a query on the debian-user mailing list, I'm told that the 0-length 
files are probably all symbolic links and that the CD is likely fine.  The 
respondent said that his/her (working) potato CD shows up with several 
0-length files under Windows, too, in place of symlinks.  I wasn't aware 
that CDs could actually have symlinks, but I am now.

	Please note that I'm still not sure that the CD that I burned IS 
fine.  I'll be doing a thorough testing later on, ignoring the 0-length 
files.  Boy, is that going to be fun.
	I plan to stay subscribed to this list until you can get back to me -- or 
at least until sometime on Monday.  (It all depends on if this list is 
high-volume, like debian-users.  :)  Please let me know what you decide, 
and thank you for your time.

-Arden Spiller
drane@x5ca.net


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