Jigdo instructions, please

[Robert P. J. Day]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008, Timothy Murphy wrote:

... regarding my jigdo instructions, i'm guessing ...

> I have heard of "mount -o loop". But the instructions say one should
> insert a DVD, which I take to mean that one should insert a DVD.

if this is meant to be a criticism of my HOWTO on jigdo, i can see
your point.  however, to be fair, right near the top, i do in fact
emphasize:

"Please read the rest of this page before trying any of it. Seriously.
I mean it. I'm not kidding."

and further down the page, i also make it clear:

"Note that if you have directory locations for other files that might
save time in the reconstruction process, just keep entering those
locations as you're prompted one at a time until you're done, and
finally just hit ENTER to let the construction begin. For the sake of
this exercise, we'll just assume you're working only with what's on
the original release DVD."

  so while i don't come ***right out*** and explain how to work with
an ISO image rather than a physical DVD, that above text should have
been enough for most people to draw the obvious logical inference and
to simply mount the ISO image somewhere and use its mount point as a
directory location.

> This is not always - or even usually - equivalent to "mount -o
> loop".

inserting a DVD is *rarely* equivalent to running "mount -o loop".
so, as i said, i'll admit that i didn't spell out, in excruciating
detail, how to take advantage of an ISO image, but that shouldn't have
been an intellectual stretch given everything else on that page.

> The jigdo documentation is not very good, which is not surprising if
> the people writing it share your approach.

i'm not sure what that last comment is supposed to imply but, if
you're feeling ambitious, there's lots of empty web page space out
there -- go wild.  we can always use additional good documentation.

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry:
    Have classroom, will lecture.

http://crashcourse.ca                          Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
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