To all of you who provided instructions, checksums, etc. during this VERY long and repetitive thread, thank you.I just re-downloaded the disc1 iso, md5sum'ed it, burned it using "-dao" and it did NOT give a correct result when performing a `md5sum /dev/cdrom'.
I too experienced problems verifying the CDs I burnt from ISOs BUT found it very much depended on which system/drive I used to read the CD.
I have two RH8 systems. One has DVD/CD RW and DVD/CD read drive. The other has just a DVD/CD reader drive.
I burnt the CD's using cdrecord with -dao option.
After burning each CD I tried "md5sum /dev/cdrom1"; Disc 1 passed; Disc2 Input/Output error; Disc 3 returned a value but it was bad.
Before panicing I decided to retest using my other drives/systems. All three CDs passed "md5sum /dev/cdrom2" on the same system. All three CDs passed on the other RH8 system.
Ok, seems my cdrom1 rw drive may have problems reading (at least the CDs it created). Can I install from cdrom1 given the CDs (which seem to be good) failed "md5sum /dev/cdrom1"?
I tested this by booting both systems from RH9 CD1 and verifying the install media. All three CDs passed on both systems.
The moral of the story seems to be (at least in my case) that my cdrom1 DVD/CDRW drive appears to be marginal. Might be hardware; might be something about the driver/config/etc. I didn't *seem* to have problems with it when I had it installed in a W2K box but maybe it has deteriorated. I too wish use of CD writing under Linux was easier, more reliable, had better front-ends and diagnostics BUT once you learn how, it does seem to work just fine.
Just my 2 cents.
R.Parr, RHCE Temporal Arts
