How-to get PCLinuxOS using the zsync download tool.

 

Here is a short how-to aimed specifically at the latest stable version of PCLinuxOS, 2009.1.

 

What is the target ISO file?

PCLinuxOS 2009.1 Final Released, March 2009

 

Where is the .zsync file available?

See this posting by Theophilus on the LinuxInternationals Forum. 

Re: Pclos 2009.1 released

 

or directly from this URL :

http://gracebiblechurchsc.org/zsync/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

 

or my version of the file from this site here.

 

What mirrors are available?

Home Get PCLinuxOS Download

 

I am going to use the Japanese mirror, which is reported to work better than some others, here.

http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/

 

The actual file URL is : --

 

http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

 

and its md5sum at

http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009.1.md5sum.

When using zsync, though, this will be automatically checked at the end of the download.

 

What similar ISO files do I have available?

As I have come late to the party, I do not have an earlier version of PCLinuxOS to use as input to downloading the final release version. The best I can do is use some recent, similar distros that I do have available.

 

This release features kernel 2.6.26.8.tex3, KDE 3.5.10, Open Office 3.0, Firefox 3.0.7, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, Ktorrent, Frostwire, Amarok, Flash, Java JRE, Compiz-Fusion 3D and much more.

 

I will try ArtistX

/media/hd6/ISO-downloads/ArtistX06/artistx_0.6_live_dvd_iso_02_14_2009.iso.CD

 

and Mandriva 2009.

/media/hd6/ISO-downloads/Mandriva/mandriva-linux-one-2009-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso

 

On other computer with XP :

 

/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/CrunchBangLinux/crunchbang-8.10.02.i386.iso

 

/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/Mandriva-2009/mandriva-linux-one-2009-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso

 

/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/DreamLinux/dl3.5/DL3.5_20092802.iso

 

/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/Mandriva-2009/mandriva-linux-one-2009-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso

 

 

 

 

Building the command line to run zsync.

 

The form of the command is : --

 

zsync URL-of-the-file.iso,zsync  -i input similar-1.iso  -i input similar-2.iso

 

or you can download the .zsync file with wget, first, which helps if you need to try more than once.

 

$ wget -c http://gracebiblechurchsc.org/zsync/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

 

zsync pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync -i /media/hd6/ISO-downloads/ArtistX06/artistx_0.6_live_dvd_iso_02_14_2009.iso.CD -i /media/hd6/ISO-downloads/Mandriva/mandriva-linux-one-2009-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso

 

Let's try and see how that goes!

 

First we create a new directory to use and locate the Konsole window there.

/media/hd6/ISO-downloads/PCLinuxOS/

 

I prefer to download the .zsync file with wget first, this saves re-downloading it if one try fails.

 

 wget -c http://gracebiblechurchsc.org/zsync/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

 

$ ls -l

total 1400

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1426466 2009-03-22 20:56 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

$

 

Now run the zsync download.

 

zsync pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync -i /media/hd6/ISO-downloads/ArtistX06/artistx_0.6_live_dvd_iso_02_14_2009.iso.CD -i /media/hd6/ISO-downloads/Mandriva/mandriva-linux-one-2009-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso

 

I'm having problems doing this in Mandriva : --

 

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1426466 2009-03-22 20:56 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

[root@localhost PCLinuxOS]# time zsync pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync -i /media/hd6/ISO-downloads/ArtistX06/artistx_0.6_live_dvd_iso_02_14_2009.iso.CD -i /media/hd6/ISO-downloads/Mandriva/mandriva-linux-one-2009-KDE4-int-cdrom-i586.iso

unrecognised tag MTime - you need a newer version of zsync.

Command exited with non-zero status 1

0.00user 0.00system 0:00.01elapsed 9%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k

168inputs+0outputs (1major+156minor)pagefaults 0swaps

[root@localhost PCLinuxOS]# apt-get zsync

bash: apt-get: command not found

[root@localhost PCLinuxOS]#

[root@localhost PCLinuxOS]# echo "Currently installed version: 0.5-5mdv2009.0"

Currently installed version: 0.5-5mdv2009.0

[root@localhost PCLinuxOS]#

 

Well I have tried this also on another computer, using Klikit-linux LiveCD, and have had no success.

 

Each mirror that I have tried has returned a  404 error, suggesting that the file does not exist but when I use 'wget -c URL', using the very same URL, it begins to download immediately, with an ETA of about 15 hours.

 

since the amount of reused data is only slightly over 4% there is actually little benefit in downloading via zsync, but it is very annoying all the same that these servers will not cooperate with an Open Source program like this.

 

PS It seems that somehow I got a hyphen in the URL where there should have been a period, like

http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009-1.iso

instead of

http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

[notice the subtil differences in red].

 

Retry.

 

Since I now have the full ISO, from a torrent download, I have made another zsync file without the problematic header line starting with 'MTime' which caused problems with some versions of zsync.

 

I tried this, using the full ISO as input file, and, as was to be expected, it created the full ISO, in new directory, and verified it without going online to download anything from the given URL.

 

In order to finish testing, using the mirror : -- http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

 

I have split the ISO file into two chunks

 

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# split -b 690m -d pclinuxos-2009.1.iso pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# ls -l

total 1427680

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 730241024 2009-03-26 23:50 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 723517440 2009-03-27 00:07 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-00

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   6723584 2009-03-27 00:07 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-01

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1426427 2009-03-26 23:31 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# rm pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# ls -l

total 714544

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 723517440 2009-03-27 00:07 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-00

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   6723584 2009-03-27 00:07 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-01

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1426427 2009-03-26 23:31 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry#

 

I will now re-try with the bigger chunk only as input and see what the result is.

 

I have had problems with the .zsync file that was sent me. The header had one line that starts with 'MTime' and when I run zsync with that file it spits it out with an error message saying that it cannot parse the 'MTime' command, or something like that. I tried editing that line out but without success.

Since I have the ISO file myself, now, I ran zsyncmake against it and used this newer version of the .zsync file and it ran OK. Using the full ISO as the input file it did not need to access the URL at all, so it finished without testing that aspect of things.

By the way, I have found that using zsync to create the ISO file on the hard drive, from the burned CD, is probably the easiest way of transfering the ISO file back to the hard drive. I have done this with the dd command but this zsync way is a bit easier still. I just had to find the /dev/... address for the mounted CD. Easiest way for that is [code]df -a[/code] then [code]zsync -i /dev/cdrom0[/code]

 

 

In order to force a partial download, I split the ISO file and used only the first part for the input file : --

[code]root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# split -b 690m -d pclinuxos-2009.1.                                                                                        iso pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# ls -l

total 1427680

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 730241024 2009-03-26 23:50 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 723517440 2009-03-27 00:07 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-00

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   6723584 2009-03-27 00:07 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-01

-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   1426427 2009-03-26 23:31 pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync

[/code]

Any way, here is the Konsole output for a successful 'update' of the ISO from the Japanese mirror.

[code]root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# date

Fri Mar 27 00:41:57 EDT 2009

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry# time zsync pclinuxos-2009.1.iso.zsync -i pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-00 -u http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso

reading seed file pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-00: ********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************Read pclinuxos-2009.1.iso-00. Target 99.1% complete.      *********************************************************************************************************************************

downloading from http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/PCLinuxOS/live-cd/english/preview/pclinuxos-2009.1.iso:

#################### 100.0% 18.0 kBps DONE

verifying download...checksum matches OK

used 723824640 local, fetched 6418772

real    6m40.392s

user    0m11.885s

sys     0m5.324s

root@klikit:/mnt/Linux/Linux-ISO-files/PCLinuxOS/PCLinuxOS-2009-retry#  [/code]