In connection with another thread I wanted to install and
partition Sarge.

To get the ISO for a netinst of Sarge, I go to /cdimage/archive/3.1_r6a/i386/iso-cd - Debian and download debian-31r6a-i386-netinst.iso to a working directory.

I copy/paste content of a new file I name SHA256SUMS in
the working dirctory.

It seems to me that in the past I was abke to download it, but
not now.

In the working directory, I do

$ sha256sum debian-31r6a-i336--netint.iso
<hashline...> debian-31r6a-i336--netint.iso

However, this hash fails to match any of the lines in
SHAW256SUMS

I tried:

$ sha256sum --check SHA256SUMS
sha256sum: Warning: 17 listed files could not be read

--

Haines Brown

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Haines

So looking at https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386 /iso-cd/
for example I see an obvious dat difference in the files.

So https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/iso-cd/deb ian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
shows for me:
sha1sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
1ae919b97c0d5e55f45c7910f4aaa7b775df75da debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

md5sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
ab486a76a9362a21054575624fead93f debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

sha256sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 5cee250e89b2993cf9053c74602868f45b6d1b1386d41803dba42c6622a4558e debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

sha512sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 27fd844d31cce01a9b06401d1672fcdbdefda9f550554728d6fb28216b3317ecd3eca29f5ae 79c1f464e631e644816e6f2a667b4935865513d6b532e7852db7c
debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso


I would raise the point that ALL the checksums are incorrect and the 8
year date range is at issue.

On Thu, Mar 26, 2026 at 8:34?AM Haines Brown <haines@histomat.net>
wrote:

In connection with another thread I wanted to install and
partition Sarge.

To get the ISO for a netinst of Sarge, I go to /cdimage/archive/3.1_r6a/i386/iso-cd - Debian and download debian-31r6a-i386-netinst.iso to a working directory.

I copy/paste content of a new file I name SHA256SUMS in
the working dirctory.

It seems to me that in the past I was abke to download it, but
not now.

In the working directory, I do

$ sha256sum debian-31r6a-i336--netint.iso
<hashline...> debian-31r6a-i336--netint.iso

However, this hash fails to match any of the lines in
SHAW256SUMS

I tried:

$ sha256sum --check SHA256SUMS
sha256sum: Warning: 17 listed files could not be read

--

Haines Brown

--
- Andrew "lathama" Latham -

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, Mar 26, 2026 at 08:48:49AM -0600, Andrew Latham wrote:

Haines

So looking at https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/iso-cd/
for example I see an obvious dat difference in the files.

Do you mean date difference between the ISO and the SHA256SUMS?

So https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/iso-cd/debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
shows for me:
sha1sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
1ae919b97c0d5e55f45c7910f4aaa7b775df75da debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

md5sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
ab486a76a9362a21054575624fead93f debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

sha256sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 5cee250e89b2993cf9053c74602868f45b6d1b1386d41803dba42c6622a4558e debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

sha512sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 27fd844d31cce01a9b06401d1672fcdbdefda9f550554728d6fb28216b3317ecd3eca29f5ae79c1f464e631e644816e6f2a667b4935865513d6b532e7852db7c
debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

I would raise the point that ALL the checksums are incorrect and the 8
year date range is at issue.

So what do you infer from that fact?

--

Haines Brown

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Yes I mean the date of ALL hash checksum files and the ISO files.

I infer that in 2016 the hashes for another release were copied by
accident to this release with ISOs dated 2008. (human error)

On Thu, Mar 26, 2026 at 9:59?AM Haines Brown <haines@histomat.net>
wrote:

On Thu, Mar 26, 2026 at 08:48:49AM -0600, Andrew Latham wrote:

Haines

So looking at https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/

i386/iso-cd/

for example I see an obvious dat difference in the files.

Do you mean date difference between the ISO and the SHA256SUMS?

So https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/iso-cd

/debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

shows for me:
sha1sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 1ae919b97c0d5e55f45c7910f4aaa7b775df75da debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

md5sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso
ab486a76a9362a21054575624fead93f debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

sha256sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 5cee250e89b2993cf9053c74602868f45b6d1b1386d41803dba42c6622a4558e debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

sha512sum debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso 27fd844d31cce01a9b06401d1672fcdbdefda9f550554728d6fb28216b3317ecd3eca29

f5ae79c1f464e631e644816e6f2a667b4935865513d6b532e7852db7c

debian-31r8-i386-netinst.iso

I would raise the point that ALL the checksums are incorrect and the 8
year date range is at issue.

So what do you infer from that fact?

--

Haines Brown

--
- Andrew "lathama" Latham -

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu, Mar 26, 2026 at 04:29:35PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote:

Hi,

If you want a verified ISO, then you will probably have to download
debian-31r6a-i386-binary-1.iso
via Jigdo from
https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r6a/i386/jigdo-cd/ which is listed in
https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r6a/i386/jigdo-cd/SHA256SUMS

$ jigdo-lite debian-31r6a-i386-binary-14.jigdo
...
File `debian-31r6a-i386-binary-14.template' does not exist!

This even though the tmplate file was in the archive.

--

Haines Brown

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Thu 26 Mar 2026 at 20:40:14 (+0100), Thomas Schmitt wrote:

[ ? ]
But the checksums seem to match. I downloaded
debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.iso
the old way:

wget https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.template
wget https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/jigdo-cd/debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.jigdo
jigdo-lite

In jigdo-lite answered the three questions by:
debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.jigdo

http://archive.debian.org/debian/
(I.e. the second input was an empty line.)

In the end, jigdo-lite confirmed that its checksum test succeeded.
I made my own checksum computation:

$ sha256sum debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.iso
a3dcb6f186c4b8cacd2f73e97a37f17f017c4b302808ff34b2e397ee0af6dd16 debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.iso

This matches in
https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/3.1_r8/i386/jigdo-cd/SHA256SUMS
the line
a3dcb6f186c4b8cacd2f73e97a37f17f017c4b302808ff34b2e397ee0af6dd16 debian-31r8-i386-binary-1.iso

jigdo-lite probably verified these lines from the (gzip compressed)
.jidgo file:

# Image Hex MD5Sum 1ca0ff341e0f610fabc81c8a3953c8e1
# Image Hex SHA1Sum 5c077d1178de21004474312879b0a205c15819e8
# Image size 663771136 bytes

I infer that in 2016 the hashes for another release were copied by
accident to this release with ISOs dated 2008. (human error)

But how would these values become associated to the names of the ISO
image files of 31r8 ?

I still think that debian-31r6a-i386-netinst.iso is simply not in the checksum lists of cdimage/archive/3.1_r6a and thus cannot be verified.

Yes, it clearly isn't in the list of checksummed files. The
netinst.iso files /look/ like netinst images when you peer inside,
but their .disk/info files say:

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r6a "Sarge" - Official i386 Binary-1 (20070422)
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 r8 "Sarge" - Official i386 Binary-1 (20080413)

A modern .disk/info says:

Debian GNU/Linux 13.2.0 "Trixie" - Official amd64 NETINST with firmware 20251115-11:04

As there are 14 of these binary files, twice the number of CDs that
the whole of woody claimed to come on, it seems reasonable to suggest
that the 14 CDs might carry the whole of sarge.

So it would be interesting to know what the .disk/info file says
inside the binary-1.iso that you've downloaded. At almost 664MB,
it's much larger than the netinst.iso (105M); presumably the pool
is bigger. (The netinst pool has 146 udebs and 181 debs.) Is this
netinst.iso one step in the evolution from a binary-1 disk to a
modern netinst ISO?

(My knowledge of installation media at this time is murky: woody was
the last I installed from the university network before I retired,
so I bought sarge and etch on 2 & 3 DVDs. By the time lenny came out,
I could download a conventional netinst via my ISP at home.)

Lastly, a question for the OP: any reason for wanting to install
sarge revision r6 or r6a, rather than its final revision, r8?

Cheers,
David.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)