Very Computer

Hi,

When I try to install the SLS distribution I get an error on disk a2
which says:

bin4.tgz not in gzip format
dosemu.tgz not in gzip format
image.tgz not in gzip format

It is only these files that give me this problem. I have obtained copies of
disk a2 from several places but they all give me the same problem. I tried to
mount the floppy a2 to see what was on it but I get garbage.

When I use gzip on or sun sparcs there is no problem with these files, and
they appear to be intact.

Any suggestions ?

Cheers

Dawood

Quote:>When I try to install the SLS distribution I get an error on disk a2
>bin4.tgz not in gzip format
>dosemu.tgz not in gzip format
>image.tgz not in gzip format
>It is only these files that give me this problem. I have obtained copies of
>disk a2 from several places but they all give me the same problem. I tried to
>mount the floppy a2 to see what was on it but I get garbage.

>When I use gzip on or sun sparcs there is no problem with these files, and
>they appear to be intact.

  1) Download all the a2 files to your sparctsation
  2) Unzip and untar the lot
  3) tar and zip the disk back up into one big .tgz file.
     (except for the diska2 file which the installation procedure uses).
  4) Install as normal - you can name the big tar file as anything,
     say a2stuff.tgz.

  I had a few letters from various people who gave various suggestions as to
what was causing the problem in response to my article a few days ago about
this. The most useful was from

who was having _exactly_ the same problem as us. I append his message to me -
it contains nothing of a personal nature  so I'm sure he won't mind - which
seems to indicate that the problem is caused by mcopy on the Sparc, though
why it should barf on those 3 files and no others on the SLS set is beyond me.

** begin insert

Message #53 (35 lines)
Date: Wed, 12 May 93 08:30:52 +0200


Subject: Problem with a2 SLS disk.

I had the same problem you mentioned in comp.os.linux. Let me guess:
  you get your a2 files via ftp on your local Sparcstation and then copy
  them to disk with mcopy * a: ?

I had the same problem here. By the way: your diska2 file is corrupted too
(isn't it?). The solution is to copy the files one by one with mcopy or to
mount your disk as pcfs and then copy the files with unix cp.

Hope this helps

Michael

** end insert.

  As you can see he also suggests 2 other methods of solving the problem if
you don't like my suggestion. Why mcopy on individual files should work fine
but not 'mcopy * a:' is a complete mystery to me. Note that I have not tried
either of these solutions as I found the "one big .tgz" method worked for me.

Quote:>Dawood

          Phil.

--

Brain failure (cerebral coretex dumped)

 PD> SLS distribution I get an error on disk a2 >bin4.tgz not in gzip format
 >dosemu.tgz not in gzip format
 >image.tgz not in gzip format
 >It is only these files that give me this problem. I have obtained copies of
 >disk a2 from several places but they all give me the same problem. I tried to
 >mount the floppy a2 to see what was on it but I get garbage.
 >
 >When I use gzip on or sun sparcs there is no problem with these files, and
 >they appear to be intact.
 PD> Join the club! I had exactly the same problem, which I only solved
 PD> last night. I'm not too sure what is causing this, but here is how I
 PD> solved it:
 PD> 1) Download all the a2 files to your sparctsation
 PD> 2) Unzip and untar the lot
 PD> 3) tar and zip the disk back up into one big .tgz file.
 PD> (except for the diska2 file which the installation procedure
 PD> uses). 4) Install as normal - you can name the big tar file as
 PD> anything,  say a2stuff.tgz.

Just so y'all know, this is not an uncommon problem on any unix.
I use SCO, and have found 8 commands that would not man.
get this, they say they aren't in compressed format, if you rename
the file w/o the Z, compress again (nothing happens) then all is well.

I also use HPux on a HP9000.  The answer was to take the leading character
off of the file using vi.  (My counterpart figured this one out, don't
ask me the * he was taking to come up with that answer)

Looking forward to all fun in Linux!

... Sincerely , Derek H Bischoff I