On Sun, Apr 06, 2003 07:26:44 at 07:26:44AM +0200, io (m.fioretti@xxxxxxxxx) wrote:
>
> At this point, I'll probably do both as soon as I get those shrike CDs from my
> friend, but any general comment is still welcome, of course.
>
Hello again.
I am trying, just to see what happens, with RH8 CDs:
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=test.iso bs=XXXX (without mounting)
md5sum test.iso
bs=2048 didn't match, I'm now trying with smaller BS sizes (other
worthwhile valus to try, anyone?)
I have also realized, however, that, partly due to my own fault, we
have been mixing two quite unrelated issues here.
1) md5sum file.iso grants that what you downloaded is what
was put on the official servers
2) linux mediacheck grants that what is on a CD is
installable
Only doing *both* steps by yourself grants (well, almost) that you will
be able to install the official SW released by ACME, Inc.
Unfortunately, step 1 is forbidden to guys without broadband, and step
2 alone doesn't prove zit as far as trusting the CD is concerned.
"Mr CD, are you a trustworthy guy, or some nasty trojan?"
.....it makes noises for a while, then says:
"Gee, you can trust me because *I* say so, go put me aside
your data"
As far as I'm concerned (getting CDs for a home PC from somebody who I
know keeps his PC reasonably safe) it's OK, but should we conclude
that there is really no way to take a generic (*) CD and say "yes, this
was made with the official {Red Hat|whatever} iso images"?
Should we ask to Red Hat, or somebody else, to provide such a package?
Ciao,
Marco Fioretti
(*) "generic" here means that does pass "linux mediacheck", does
install whatever you ask him to install, but was burned God knows how
by God knows who. Yes, this is all a bit paranoid, but since there
*have* been Linux magazines saying "just install with rpm --nodeps our
stuff and trust me" it's not really hypothetical...
--
Marco Fioretti m.fioretti, at the server inwind.it
Red Hat for low memory http://www.rule-project.org/en/
I never let my schooling get in the way of my education. -- Mark Twain
