Hi, just wondering, where can i get a list of ftp servers to install SuSE from with the SuSE FTP install CD? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Perhaps this link would help you find your answer:
http://www.usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=8161

-twantrd

You can also go to the Suse list of mirrors Be advised that a Suse FTP installation will take a long time, with approx 3.3G of data that needs to be moved.

Something you may want to consider: download the files to your local drive or to a secondary machine, and then do the install off that. Given the length of time that it takes to move that much data, if something blows up mid-stream and you have to start over (I did, more than once) you want to avoid having to start from the beginning and re-download all that data.

twantrd -- nice link, that would have saved me some trouble.

In any event, good luck with it. Personally, I consider Suse 9.1 to be a pretty good distro -- J.W.

Hi, thank you for all your answers. I used the dig command from the link above and it worked, and I already have completed the install of SuSE (only took 2 and 1/2 hours believe it or not, and I chose a lot of stuff). Anyways, for future reference for everyone, if you want to install from a server named ftp.linux.net/pub/suse/9.1 let's say, you would type this in

dig ftp.linux.net

It will report the address back at you. Then, when starting the installation, it will ask for this IP address, type it in, and then type in /pub/suse/9.1/ when it asks for the directory.

(Note: ftp.linux.net is not a real server, don't use it. You can find a list of servers at suse.com)

Again, thank you for all your help and espescially thank you twantrd for that link, it fixed my problem.

Yea, SuSE 9.1 is a good distro. I used it before but, due to an accident, 2 of the discs are no longer in a single piece (gotta hate little brothers) and Iwanted to use it again, so that's why I did the FTP install.

Yes it does take a long time to download. And if you try doing it through just FTP maybe you will get disconnected and have to try again. The problem with that is if you start the download and leave it overnight, when you come back in in the morning you don't know which directories were completed and which not.

I tried using ncftp for a recursive get from the mirror distro.ibiblio.org, but there were so many files that were symbolic links. For some reason ncftp refused to follow the links. Also any other FTP client instead of downloading things like 9.1/suse/setup/desc/packages.sk as a symbolic link, it downloaded the whole file all over again.

Well I Set up on my Windows box (I haven't yet a window manager set up in linux) a filezilla client to download to my hard drive as I had room, and then to upload those files back onto my RedHat ftp server. Filezilla does a recursive copy and keeps in the queue files that fail.

Problem: I didn't know whether to download some files binary or ascii, so I downloaded them all binary.

I have all the files now except the dosutil directory (problematic to download even with filezilla) and all the checksums check out, but when I try to install from my /mounts/temp/public/9.1 directory the boot image loads, but on the installation screen I get the error:

SOFTWARE

Cannot read package data from installation media. Media Error?
Error: No Proposal

does anybody want to give me a hint as to what set of files are missing or corrupt to make this happen. I wonder if it has something to do with character problems in ascii files when I downloaded them to windows and then up to linux again. I thought it would be the 9.1/suse/setup/desc directory that was missing or corrupt, so I tried downloading again in binary mode straight from ncftp on my RedHat ftp server, but again I got a timeout and had to start over each time.

REF: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...04/10/2/191033

I've seen that before. My problem was a networking issue though.

You say the checksums check...Did you know that there are several MD5SUMS files? There is one "master" md5 file, so to speak. It contains hashes for many files INCLUDING several additional "MD5SUMS" files. You need to run a check on each of them in order to verify the integrity of your download as a whole. (If you already realized this, then never mind)

The initial 50 MB loads by this point, so it's able to read the drive...

I'll need to puzzle over this one a bit.

Last night I downloaded the full FTP DVD for SuSE 9.2 and I am having similar probs. Originally, I tried downloading via FTP (ftp.suse.com) but it was sooo damn slow, I aborted (however it was working). I tried an Australian mirror, but I began recieving the error:

"Cannot read package data from installation media. Media Error?" in YaST.

I spoke to a friend and he was under the impression that the Australian mirrors had not yet sync'd fully. I figured the FTP DVD would be my best option as it would probably save me a lot of headache later, so I went hunting for the full DVD ISO. Funnily enough, I found it on an Australian mirror (can't remember which one now), clicked on it and went to bed. I checked it when I woke up and all seemed good. Now, heres the tricky part, the machine I'm installing SuSE on doesn't have a DVDROM in it (nor do I have a spare), so i thought I would have a go at mounting the DVD (using Daemon Tools) and copying it to a share on my windows box, next I took the 9.2 boot CD and threw it in my soon to be SuSE machine. I pointed the SuSE install in the direction of my windows share and away she went, all seemed good until it went looking for packages, again I get this bloody error:

"Cannot read package data from installation media. Media Error?" in YaST. Grrrrr!!!!

I sat and pondered my problem and came up with an idea, what if i build my own Boot CD using the files from the DVD???? Hmmmm, sounds crazy enough, but for some reason I thought there may be a difference with the config files on the standard boot CD and the bootable FTP DVD. So away I went, I built a new ISO using mkisofs, burnt it and banged it in the machine. To my surprise it actually booted, I again pointed the install in the direction of the windows share and away she went and again I got that damn error message:

"Cannot read package data from installation media. Media Error?" in YaST.

By now I am pulling my hair out trying to figure out what to do, did I just waste 3.3GB of precious downloads??? There is absolutly bugger all information about what I am experiencing, which kinda makes me think I'm the only one, then I found this thread and its the closest I have come to finding anything tangable, so please, if you have any info that might at least point me in the right direction, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Adam

Just a quick follow-up, I set up apache on the windows box that I was using originally to host the SuSE distro and then configured an alias that pointed to the share I was originally using. Then I kicked off the install and it worked???? SuSE 9.2 is installing as I type this. WTF is going on with the SMB component of the SuSE install??? Any ideas???

Quote:

_______
You say the checksums check...Did you know that there are several MD5SUMS files? There is one "master" md5 file, so to speak. It contains hashes for many files INCLUDING several additional "MD5SUMS" files. You need to run a check on each of them in order to verify the integrity of your download as a whole. (If you already realized this, then never mind)
___________

First of all, I can't figure out how to get this dang thing to reply directly to a specific post (see above reply).

Anyway, yes I did figure out that there was more than one MD5 sum but I THOUGHT I had everything I needed (only the dosutils directory and 3 docs that I can't seem to download are missing). Here is what I am wondering, to what file specifically is it throwing the error. I would think that the 9.1/suse/setup/desc is the only directory it would need up to that point (that is where the packages.sk file as well as the MINIMAL.sel file is located) the MD5 sums from this directory check out. What's more is if I copy MINIMAL.sel to the drive i'm installing from and load a custom selection in YaST it gives me an error loading the file. I noticed on ftp that packages.sk is a link pointing to packages.cs. Should mine be the same?

Does it matter that I got the i386/9.1 directory but none of the other ones at the same level? The README.ftp file says simply "Copy the directory structure to your local drive" I figure that the lack of support they supply is on purpose so that they can sell the CD's


It would be nice to know what requirements get you how far, I mean it only takes a second for the package selection to fail, which means to me that there is one file missing or a small checksum is wrong. Maybe there are some .files that I didn't get or something, who knows. Anyway it is annoying because I can't FTP install off any mirror since I keep getting disconnected, and I can't copy the FTP to my local machine because of the above error.

Another Tidbit. If you try downloading to windows and then to linux you will run in to two types of problems (at least - far be it for me to restrict windows problems to just 2) When you copy in ASCII mode the FTP client's presentation layer will translate \n into \r\n. Then when you upload it to unix the translation may happen again. The second problem is that files like Minimal.sel and MINIMAL.sel will overwrite eachother since windows is not case sensitive and when you upload it to Linux again you will only have one of the two files.

I'm worried that I might have done something like that.


FYI -- for those that had a hard time with there being so many MD5's to check, here is a short script to take care of it:

First cd to your 9.1 directory.
find ./ -name MD5SUMS > /home/~user/MD5s

Then, modify the file so that there is only the directory structure with the preceeding / and no suffix "/MD5SUMS" for each line

Then run this script

#!/bin/bash

rm /home/~user/MDcheck
for MDDIR in `cat /home/~user/MD5s`
do
echo "$MDDIR" >> /home/~user/MDcheck
cd /mounts/temp/public/$MDDIR
/usr/bin/md5sum -c MD5SUMS | grep -v OK >> /home/~user/MDcheck
done

If someone finds out what file is causing this error, please let me know. Even if I have to dig around in source code forever I plan to find out.

Well I got as far as it letting me select the packages.

Here are some things I changed.
I moved my /mounts/temp/public/9.1 folder so that ftp root could see it as (without leading slash) pub/suse/i386/9.1/. This time I didn't put the leading slash. I don't know if that is what made it work. I tried some more checksums and got the files again that I was missing. I also logged in anonymously. I don't know which change did it but I got past where I was getting before. I'm still having problems but I might figure it out soon here when I get the chance

"This time I didn't put the leading slash"

It would be so lame, but I can see how this could make an impact. The initial blue screen might automatically strip the leading slash to connect and find the file, but then pass the value to YaST unmodified. I think YaST has a problem with the leading slash.

I'm almost positive that that is what it is.
I figured it out reading the documentation in a place or two that said make the directory "pub" without the leading slash. I couldn't see any other similarity between the different mirrors I used except for the anonymous access, but I assume since YaST gives you the option to log in or connect anonymously, that it would be such a glaring bug it would have been fixed by now.

I don't plan on trying it again with the leading slash because I'm ready to move on now, but if someone finds out that is what it was, let me know.


There was an interesting article in Infoworld Jan 10, 2005 titled "Open Source Documentation" that this problem reminds me of. It is interesting that so much more help comes from after-market product users than comes from developers or even support organizations. Suse is of course supposed to be that way, but that even happens with products I buy in the store. I want to give one more vote of gratitude to all the volunteer strangers out there who have been a lot more help to me than neighbors and vendors who I actually pay.

Phil

____
Where is my Technical support when I need it?
Linuxquestions.org

I downloaded suse 9.2 dvd iso, checked md5s, everything ok, I burned image with nero and deepburner but I am getting crc errors if I try to copy files to disk or while installing.

Are their isos corrupt?

thanks

The dvd iso is good as far as I was able to tell and check. I didn't burn it though. I mounted it on my linux server, then I did a local ftp install. It worked great with no dropped connections or errors.