Edited on the 14th, March, 2011
I am not sure whether the comments i have mde below is correct, since I have found the same problem with Debian 6. DVD. Unable to copy the DVD image. It is 4.3 GiB (same size as SuSe) and Linux unable deal with a file size above 4 GiB in one file and has to be broken into two which can be done only with torrent.
PCLinuxfullMonty has restricted itself to 4 GiB and Gentoo with 4.4 GiB has probably divided the file into two (32 bit and 64 bits ) and by doing that has accommodated above 4 GiB.
I hope since the SuSe DVD has Gnome KDE, LXDE and xFce by dropping one of the latter two SuSe should be able to reduce the DVD lod to $ GIb in future so that image can be saved for posterity.
I hope somebody enlighten me on this issue.
SuSe community has the peculiar habit which they have acquired form Novel and Microsoft annoys me a lot, to say the least.
They let you download (which takes more than 36 hours or more from K-torrent in Sri-Lanka) a single copy of the image and and won’t let you copy the image as an archive. In the final seconds of the copying it has a script to abort copying which only commercial companies can use as a ploy to protect the copyright (which I am in total support).
This is not a Linux Tradition even if they are commercially operational.
In fact violates the principles of FOSS and true spirit of open software and OS systems.
When it happened for first time I deleted the image and kept the DVD for installation.
If I want I can copy the DVD but always have two copies one for use other one for safe keeping.
Mind you DVD cannot be kept indefinitely and if the image is copied to a external hard drive, a CD/DVD can be written if the DVD in use is damaged.
For example for an emergency but not for re-sale. I am not interested in copying and selling it to a third party.
My intentions are are academic and only for archival and retrieval purposes..
Unfortunately most of the old distributions are not in any archives or servers. The servers and linux tracker included have the habit of deleting not used (frequently) distributions from the sever to accommodate space in the server for new distributions.
They write automatic script to do this house cleaning job without archiving them.
The point I am raising is relevant now. Currently LinuxTracker is down but gradually adding the images to it’s servers and it cannot retrieve even the most recently used distributions quickly enough to get the sytsem running in double quick time and it is a headache and lot of heart burns for many system administrators.
There should be a way of transfwring the infrequently used into a system category away from the main stream and thereafter after a lapse of a period if still not used can be transferred to an archival medium. All these cost time and money.
I was once downloading BigDaddy (my favorite PCLinux’s original successful version) from a server. If I remember right it was softpedia. Half way through my download (which takes ages from Sri-Lanka) it was no longer avialable and I was heart broken. I could not finish the downkload it.
I made a humble request at PCLinux forum and one nice gentleman let me directed to a server and I quickly downloaded it for archiving. It is live and cannot be installed but I use it for demonstrating the humble beginning of very successful distribution.
Similar incident happened with Pendrive Linux. These was a defect (I got it downloaded from a Microsoft machine with Nero) in the imabe,
This was the first time I got a bootable Linux Image in a Pendrive. Now even Pendrive site does not have a copy of the Original Image and I cannot get it from distromania or from Linuxtracker. It is like collecting old stamps and coins.
It has become a hobby and a pastime for me keeping the archives.
Coming from an academic (not commercial) background, simple thing like these matter a lot in the long run.
Commercial investors when they want to introduce a new system they begin by not supporting and then destroying the old system by default making the user vulnerable. Microsoft does this very well.
I cannot understand why Linux does this and good example is SuSe who has got under the fold of commercial CEOs.
Coming back to my story what I did was to make a copy of the image (this is something I used to do for old Distributions without an image but only a CD/ DVD for archiving) with K3B and saved it instead of deleting after the image is written to the CD/DVD.
When I tried and used the saved image for writing to a DVD it gives an annoying warning that the Image ” file size is different from the declared volume”.
Linux (K3B) checks the file size before writing and gives a warning before it writes to prevent one from copying a bad image and wasting a CD or DVD.
This warning or the deterrent cannot be true since the file image property goes as 4 GiB.
These are some of the nuances of SuSe and Mandriva which are driving Linux fans or uses away from them.
I cannot simply agree with this ploy and that is why I am moving away from Oracle, SuSe and Mandriva.
A CEO with commercial interest makes these decisions and my concern is why can’t they openly say DO NOT COPY but use these underhand methods.
asokaplus 