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
Reply to: