FOSSwire

Ever wondered what that MD5sum and SHA1sum things are when you are downloading ISO images? Whether it's a Linux distro, or any other file, you might have seen these 'checksums' floating around.

Their purpose is to allow you to verify that you have a complete and uncorrupted copy of a file. If you can generate the same checksum with your copy of the file, then the file must be a true copy.

So, how do you verify these checksums?

For Windows users

Windows users - you need to first download both md5sum.exe and sha1sum.exe from the CentOS dostools page. Once they've downloaded, copy them to C:\WINDOWS\system32 (so you can use them from the command line without typing the whole path).

Pretty simple. Open up your command line terminal - usually in Accessories or System Tools on Linux. Windows users - you'll want to do Start > Run > cmd.exe > OK.

Then simply type either md5sum or sha1sum, followed by the full path to the downloaded file.

For example, if I want to verify the MD5 of ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso stored in /home/peter/Downloads, I'd do this:

md5sum /home/peter/Downloads/ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso

Similarly, to check the SHA1 sum:

sha1sum /home/peter/Downloads/ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso

After some calculation, which might take a while depending on file size, you'll get a checksum of your own. Compare this to the one listed on the website you downloaded from.

If the two checksums match, your copy is complete and true. Burn with confidence!

Windows users - your paths will look something more like: md5sum "C:\Documents and Settings\Peter\My Documents\Downloads\ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-i386.iso". It's just the same idea, though!

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I've been trying fruitlessly for the past few days trying to install Fedora 9 from the official i386 install DVD. The SHA1 sum validated fine, and I burned it to a new DVD-R disc.

On inserting it into the machine I was planning to install on, and then post my impressions here on FOSSwire from, I received two errors. The system boots from the isolinux menu without a problem, and works right up until you select to install from your CD/DVD media.

Initially, I kept being asked for a driver from a driver floppy. There was no specific information as to what driver it was searching for, and I was stumped as Fedora 8 previously installed without a problem on the same hardware.

Later, this no longer appeared, but instead I got this:

If anyone out there in the community has experienced this issue too, I'd be extremely grateful if they would let me know. Also, any potential solutions to the problem would be a great help.

The Fedora Project has announced the immediate release of Fedora 9, codenamed Sulphur.

The new release features the latest versions of the two desktop environments, GNOME 2.22 and KDE 4.0.3. In addition it also features PackageKit, a new graphical package manager built on top of the yum system, the latest Firefox 3 Beta 5 brower, a new upgrade system for upgrading to new releases of the distro, Upstart as the system startup mechanism and more.

You can read a summary of the changes on the Fedora Wiki here.

You can download the new release from this page, in either BitTorrent or standard HTTP download using a mirror of your choice. There are three variants to download - an Install-only disc, a GNOME Live CD and a KDE-based Live CD.