Downloading the sidux-CD

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: sidux, as a Linux LIVE-CD, is based on high compression technology, (initially pioneered by Knoppix however it's not the same as Knoppix) and because of that, special care is needed when burning the ISO image. Only use high quality CD-media [or DVD+RW] and burn in DAO-mode (disk-at-once) and not faster than x8.

Download Mirrors

Please use your closest mirror.

Europe

North America

Asia

Africa

Australia

Our thanks goes to all mirror hosters for their efforts regarding sidux.

If anybody has a fast FTP-Server with sufficient traffic at their command, please inform the sidux team. Alternatively go to sidux Forums or IRC-Channel on oftc.net

Download-Links and Mirrors are also found found sidux.com

Downloading with Bittorent

Bittorent is a protocol for filesharing. This enables you to download files from the internet and upload at the same time.

There is not an official bittorrrent tracker, however if someone has seeded a torrent they may post on the sidux forum the location of torrent-url. The command for example, in a terminal will look something like this:

# btdownloadcurses --max_upload_rate 12 ftp://dummy/sidux/sidux-200xxxxx/sidux-200xxxxx.iso.torrent

Soon after your download should start. Be sure that there is enough free space for the ISO-File in the directory that you issue the command from, (approx 700 -1500 MB).

After your download is finished, please keep the program running so that you share the file for other users. This will decrease the overall load on the servers, and the files get spread faster. A good tutorial can be found on Brians BitTorent FAQ and Guide

Don't forget to md5sum and validate the download.

md5sum and Validation

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: sidux, as a Linux LIVE-CD, is based on high compression technology, (initially pioneered by Knoppix however it's not the same as Knoppix) and because of that, special care is needed when burning the ISO image. Only use high quality CD-media [or DVD+RW] and burn in DAO-mode (disk-at-once) and not faster than x8.

ALWAYS BACK-UP YOUR DATA!

This is a checksum for a file and is used to check the integrity of files. The current md5sum of the file is compared with a known checksum. This way you can validate if a file has been changed or damaged; this is advisable for files downloaded from the internet.

If the md5sum of the downloaded file corresponds to the one in the md5-file, you can be sure that the file was downloaded correctly. Under Linux you get the checksum with: (it takes a moment to calculate)

$ md5sum file_to_check

The sum will be written in the konsole.
With md5sum (486 kb) the md5sum can also be validated in Windows.

The ISO-Images of sidux are always offered with a md5sum file and should always be validated before burning. This guarantees that if problems occur, they are not to be sought in the downloaded files, and this keeps the forum free of problems that can't be pinned down because the ISO-file was damaged in the first place. You should do this in a konsole. Change to the directory with the Iso-File and the MD5-Sum and issue the command to have the md5-sum checked. e.g:

$ md5sum -c sidux.iso.md5

If they don't match, you will get an error:

"sidux.iso: Error
md5sum: Warning: calculated checksum does not match!"

If the downloaded file is correct, the program ends without a message.

How Do I Burn The CD With Windows?

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: sidux, as a Linux LIVE-CD, is based on high compression technology, (initially pioneered by Knoppix however it's not the same as Knoppix) and because of that, special care is needed when burning the ISO image. Only use high quality CD-media [or DVD+RW] and burn in DAO-mode (disk-at-once) and not faster than x8.

Naturally, you can burn the CD with Windows, too. The downloaded file must be burned as an ISO-file. If Winrar (or any other archiving tool) is linked with an .ISO-file, it may irritate because one would take it for an archive. From the ISO-file you must burn a CD.

You have several good options to burn in Windows.

Open Source burners for Windows

cdrtfe :compatible for Windows 9x/ME/2000/XP (tested with Win95, Win98SE, Win2000, and WinXP) only for Win9x/ME: working ASPI Layer (e.g. Adaptec ASPI 4.60)

Closed Source and Proprietary burners for Windows

Burning The CD With Linux

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: sidux, as a Linux LIVE-CD, is based on high compression technology, (initially pioneered by Knoppix however it's not the same as Knoppix) and because of that, special care is needed when burning the ISO image. Only use high quality CD-media [or DVD+RW] and burn in DAO-mode (disk-at-once) and not faster than x8.

If you already run Linux on your machine you should burn the CD either by using the shell or with any of your installed burning programs.

With sidux and other Linux distributions K3b comes as default cd-burning tool. Open it, select "Extras" -> "burn CD-Image..." and select the ISO-File to burn (e.g. sidux.iso).

K3B initially calculates the MD5-sum for the ISO-file (this takes a moment). When the checksum is equal to the checksum in the MD5-file (for example sidux.iso.md5) your download was successful and you can burn the file by hitting "Start".

You can burn it directly from the shell, more information is here.

Creating a sidux-CD using XDELTA-Patch

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT: sidux, as a Linux LIVE-CD, is based on high compression technology, (initially pioneered by Knoppix however it's not the same as Knoppix) and because of that, special care is needed when burning the ISO image. Only use high quality CD-media [or DVD+RW] and burn in DAO-mode (disk-at-once) and not faster than x8.

xdelta is a program that makes a new ISO-image out of an initial ISO-image and some modified files, among other things. It is also made to allow small bug-fixes without incurring high download costs.

In a terminal/konsole as root:

apt-get update
apt-get install xdelta

The modified files from patch_2007-03-200707231344-gaia_pre2-kde-lite_200708051825-gaia_pre3-kde-lite.xdelta is, for example, only 127 MB in size, whereas the ISO-image itself is 553 MB.

Let's assume you have:

In a terminal/konsole as user:

$ cd /path/to/iso/and/patch
$ xdelta patch patch_2007-03-200707231344-gaia_pre2-kde-lite_200708051825-gaia_pre3-kde-lite.xdelta

The program will extract the needed filenames from the patch. It will also do the md5sum check. Mind: it will not check for enough free space on hd.

Here is a link, for xdelta.exe for Windows, to patch your sidux- LiveCD in Windows. Information and execution for xdelta with Windows

Content last revised 05/08/2008 0300hrs UTC