Odyssey downloading SuSE Linux 10.1

First off, I should point out that none of this is the fault of SuSE.  The problems were all on my side.  I'd been very eagerly waiting for the release of 10.1, and finally it came out last Thursday.  So on Friday morning I started the download of the six CD image files.

At first, the downloads were so slow that I was probably getting little more than the speed of a telephone line over our ADSL at the office, and this situation lasted for most of the office hours.  Very frustrating.  Then I went back home, and was monitoring the download by using UltraVNC.  Very neat trick!  In the evening though, I started to see more decent download speeds.  I was pretty glad, but still it wasn't going to be done before I went to bed.

This morning I wake up, and can't see the remote computer.  Something's wrong with the Internet connection at the office.  I have no idea what time this problem arised, but there's the chance the download might've been interrupted as well.  So even though it wasn't in my plans, I went to the office.

I don't understand what happened.  Our office wireless AP seemed to be working fine with the wired computer, but the wireless one doing the download couldn't connect.  The thing is, I checked the state of the downloads, and two of the CD images were incomplete, so I resumed the download.

When I had my six images, I ran the checksum program, and found that two of the images were incorrect, so I had to download them again.

The wireless computer can't burn CDs, so once I had all of the images, I needed to pass this to the other computer that does have a CD burner, but what a pain in the ass.  For some reason, the wireless computer kept on losing the connection in the middle of me copying the files, so arrgh!  I needed to physically bring the wired computer downstairs and place it right next to the wireless one and connect them both with a crossover Ethernet cable.

This made the file transfer really fly.  The speed was different like night and day!  But once I had all of the files in the computer that can burn CDs, I checked again the checksum values, and most of them were wrong, so I had to repeat over and over and over again these file transfers.  I couldn't understand how come the checksums don't match if the filetransfers went on smoothly.  But then eventually found out the checksum program was flaky!!!  Fuck!  This utility had never let me down before, and for me it was unthinkable it would fail this way.  Unbelievable.  At the end, I just have to assume these images are good.

Anyway, after a very long wasted time, I proceeded to burn the magic CDs!  Addons CD, CD1, CD2, CD3... and then power failure in the middle of burning CD3.  Fuck!  Of course, that CD was corrupted for ever and ever Amen.  So then I pop in another CD.  Strange, the CD burning program doesn't get past 5% progress even after 10 minutes of work.  Is the CD burner damaged from the power failure?  I don't see anything changing on the GUI for many many minutes.  This is already many times over what it should take to create the CD.  So, I power off the computer and start to wonder maybe I need to use yet a different computer to burn the CDs, and this will require again the file transfer ordeal.

But once again, I give it one more shot, and this time it works!  CD3 is successfully burnt.  The problem appears to have been a defective CD.  Gee!  Then CD4 and CD5 burning uneventfully.  Wow, today it's Saturday and I ended up staying at the office almost like any regular working day.  But I'm glad I did it.  Now next time I get some spare time, I'll install this baby into some spare harddisk!!!

By the way, just to test I brought the office's wireless AP home to see if I lose my connection like in the office or not.  I didn't change anything, even the ISP user id is the same, and so far, the wireless AP has been working flawlessly for more than one hour.  Odd.