Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 09:20:38 -0500 From: Tom Embt <tom@embt.com> To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why not gzip iso images? Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.20000317092038.0078a018@mail.embt.com> In-Reply-To: <200003152209.XAA22951@dorifer.heim3.tu-clausthal.de> References: <8aorf2$htp$1@atlantis.rz.tu-clausthal.de>
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[...] > > Another issue is the size. Many factors determine how quickly one can > > obtain the ISO. It would be nice if it were broken into smaller > > volumes. About 10-20 MB each would be good. That way should something > > fail, there less time and bandwidth wasted should one need to start over. > >That would just make things more complicated, and there's no >reason for that. That's what the "reget" command is good for >-- no reason to start over at all. I would like to mention one case where it would have been helpful to have the .iso broken into smaller pieces. I have a 21,600bps net connection which my ISP will disconnect after 6 hours of uptime, and once had a friend (whom is not nearby, but I see on on occasion) download the 3.3-STABLE ISO image for me via his cable modem for me to burn to CD. As luck would have it the file's MD5 checksum did not match up, and I was forced to redownload the entire file over my sloow modem connection (took around 6 days). Had the file been split and a checksum computed for each piece, I could have grabbed only the affected portion of the ISO. This said, I still do not believe it is worthwhile to split the ISO into smaller files, as it only adds complexity to the situation. Concatenating the files back into an ISO would be OS-dependant and perhaps a bit too much for first time users to cope with. I just assume things stay the way they are. Also, should anyone care, I feel that gzipping these files is a waste of time, unless server bandwith is a serious concern. Tom Embt tom@embt.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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