why don't they zip the iso's OR am I the only schmuck running a 56k still

[ekz13]

ok, so I'm thinking, let me upgrade to RH7.1 so I start looking at the .iso files 650meg, ouch, why don't the zip them or tar them to make them smaller or break them into chunks. Now I know that you can order them for next to nothing, but sometimes its the shipping (yeah for a cd) and in this case, someone is doing me a favor and burning me one, but then there is the wait, and then if the cd's are bad. in the "I want it now" generation, well damnit :) I want it now. (just kidding) smaller more managable chunks like 50 or 100 meg chunks (d/l over a couple of days) does a d/l manager work on this.

[Joeri Sebrechts]

This is what http and ftp resume is meant for. Any decent download manager can pause and resume downloads. Even wget can do it, if you're really in a bind.

[chikn]

Use an FTP client instead of a browser so that it will resume the download. If you break the connection then reestablish it will continue where it left off.

[chikn]

Originally posted by Joeri Sebrechts:
<STRONG>This is what http and ftp resume is meant for. Any decent download manager can pause and resume downloads. Even wget can do it, if you're really in a bind.</STRONG>


Damn one of those exact same time posts.

[ekz13]

man that was fast, I just stepped away to get a soda and you guys were all over it...

[ 10 October 2001: Message edited by: ekz13 ]

[Butros]

I've wondered this too, (as one of my servers downloads MDK 8.1 right now for a little over 26 hours :( )

I have never attempted to compress an iso, but I have a strong feeling they would not compress a whole heckuvalot... at least not to make the time and effort feasable.

Even at 56k, I can download a distro in 28 hours... which is faster than having it delivered, so I just live with it. However there are a number of distros that do not require a huge iso (debian, or lfs - Linux From Scratch -)

I feel for ya, and I've lived in 56k land for some time... and after having T1 right to my house it is not a fun time.

[ekz13]

you know I don't even really have a problem with the 27 hour d/l, BUT, I'm in germany and I pay 2.5 phennig/min (about 1.2 cents) (hey no cents key, humm) anyway, that would kill me. they are not that caught up on the whole tech war of unlimited internet or free isp's.

[jrbush82]

wow, you should move ;)

[YaRness]

or shell out the 5 bucks to have someone mail it to you.

[Mortale]

I'm running 56k...I got both ISOs of MDK 8.1 in 20 hours of DL time.

Just let it run while you sleep.

That's 10 hours per 630 MB file... Not sure what ISP you guys are using for the 28 hour download, but you should switch.

[Frankie White]

Actually, I wouldn't blame the ISP out right.. Line condition can make a difference even on analog modem connections. I get 4k/s about on good days, some quick math shows that for a 650mb iso it would take me about 45 hours to download an iso (eek! Someone check that math..) and I've used several ISP's .. But I'm kind afar from the telco.. You take your lumps and live with it. On the other hand, if you can get a 630 (Did you mean 650?)mb iso in 10 hours that's 17.5kilobytes per second = pretty damn unlikely..

[evulish]

I don't think that zipping an ISO will do all that much.

[bdg1983]

Are they not already compressed? At least the packages are.

When you create the cd from the iso, you end up with roughly 650MB, but when you install everything from the cd, you end up with around twice that amount.

So as evulish said, zipping an ISO would not do all that much.

[ekz13]

good point.. I guess it is already compressed. I just got curious when people were saying "oh I tried X,Y,Z distro, and I like X" I didn't think that everyone buys all of the distros and makes the choice, that's alot of coin to spend. and I know not everyone has a t1 in their house.

[ekz13]

Originally posted by jrbush82:
<STRONG>wow, you should move ;)</STRONG>


When you do uncle sams bidding.. moving, well at least, when you want, is a near impossibility. :)

[rattus]

Personally, I wish more magazine cover disks had distro's on them. I've bought a couple of "burnt by some guy and paying him for it, hmmmm, this feels like how I got into windows &lt;g&gt;" CD's.

What I'd like is a CD with decent documentantion - at a reasonable price. Gee, that's what I got with the Linux based distros. :cool: .

Seriously though, folks ;) I've got 56k access, I'm running Debian, and I've never been happier. Geeez, I feel like an advert.

With regards to the .iso question - Why not try zipping or tar/gzipping one and seeing if the resultant file is smaller - hang on - I'll open an Eterm and find out(I hate control-G)

rattus@home:~$ su
Password:
home:/home/rattus# cd /mnt/e
home:/mnt/e# ls -l smoothwall-0.9.9.iso
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 20832256 Oct 11 20:57 smoothwall-0.9.9.iso
home:/mnt/e# gzip -9 smoothwall-0.9.9.iso
home:/mnt/e# ls -l smoothwall-0.9.9.iso.gz
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 18715743 Oct 11 20:57 smoothwall-0.9.9.iso.gz
home:/mnt/e#

Well, that one didn't compress much. Just have to get faster internet, I guess :D

&lt;whisper: Don't mind him, were working on his medication&gt;

[dvdnut]

if you live in the uk you can get your distro from www.cheepbytes.com (http://www.cheepbytes.com) which is based in stockport near manchester, and its only a fiver a throw on some of them, with a 9 cd pack for 30quid

and in addition if you do live in the uk and not in a cable area (like me) you either have to sign up to an isp which provides 0800 acces at cost, and even those kick you off after 2 hrs, it would be cheaper to go to the url and buy em

[jaygee432]

Cheepbytes as mentioned or Linux Mall are alternatives, where you can get a variety of distros for the price of 1 or 2 happy meals, including S & H.

[Joeri Sebrechts]

Originally posted by Mortale:
<STRONG>I'm running 56k...I got both ISOs of MDK 8.1 in 20 hours of DL time.

Just let it run while you sleep.

That's 10 hours per 630 MB file... Not sure what ISP you guys are using for the 28 hour download, but you should switch.</STRONG>

10 hours for 630 mb
1 hour --&gt; 63 mb
3600 seconds --&gt; 63000 kb
1 second --&gt; 17,5 k

Something tells me that either you're not on a regular modem connection, or you were slightly exagerating.

Theoretical top speed (including compression if you're lucky) of a regular 56k modem is 7 k / sec
--&gt; 25200 k / hour
--&gt; 604800 k / day
That's almost an iso in 24 hours. It would take 25 hours to get an iso at theoretical top speed. So 28 hours for an iso is pretty darn good.

[yard21]

Originally posted by ekz13:
<STRONG>you know I don't even really have a problem with the 27 hour d/l, BUT, I'm in germany and I pay 2.5 phennig/min (about 1.2 cents) (hey no cents key, humm) anyway, that would kill me. they are not that caught up on the whole tech war of unlimited internet or free isp's.</STRONG>

I really feel with you, I'm in the same situation. I thought about downloading debian woody, but it would cost way too much.

The guys at www.linux-iso.de (http://www.linux-iso.de) ship CD's for reasonable prices, but they're down at the moment :(.
You get some self-burned CD's without any package or something, but I don't think that would be a problem.
I have to add that I never tried them though, don't blame me if they sell junk! :)

[Craig McPherson]

Originally posted by ekz13:
<STRONG>why don't the zip them or tar them to make them smaller or break them into chunks.</STRONG>

tar does not make things smaller, or break things into chunks.

[ekz13]

it's not that big of a deal, there are several sources out there as well as the experienced users that could burn copies for you too. as for d/l speeds nothing really to do about that.

- thanks for the info on the tar thing, I was assuming it was like a linux winzip.

[Sweede]

Originally posted by Craig McPherson:
<STRONG>tar does not make things smaller, or break things into chunks.</STRONG>


actually, tar does span chunks, but its wierd and a *****
its like -m and -b or something

but tar does not compress things (make em smaller)

[Malakin]

split and cat would of course be the standard tools for splitting files and putting them back together. If you use split to split a file you can even stick it back together in winbloze "copy /b file1 + file2"

[ekz13]

just tossing the idea out there, so as far as file splitting, would it be possible to have the chunks (split iso) out on a web server available for download? and then have the user reassemble them on the home pc.