downloading big files from Raspberry Pi's servers

[3.14159265358979323+]

Recently I downloaded NOOBS 1.2, using the link on the Downloads page.

My bandwidth here isn't great, so I had to wait a long time to get this file. And when the download was done, the file turned out to be corrupted. Or rather, incomplete; only about 90% of the file was there.

I'm using a recent version of Firefox, which can resume downloads. But it wouldn't. I did some research and learned that Raspberry Pi's servers apparently don't support resumeable downloads (something to do with the ability to request byte ranges).

I could simply request the entire file again, but I'm loath to do that, as my bandwidth is scarce and what's the point if the next try breaks again?

I know how to use Bittorrent to fix a broken download, so I used that to complete the download. But my ISP severely throttles torrents, so this took *days*.

Now I hear that there's a new version of NOOBS, and a new Raspbian, and here we go again...

Anybody here in contact with the guys who administer these servers? Would be nice if there was some other way of downloading other that the two methods available right now. Adding support for resumeable downloads? Rsync maybe?

Thanks.

[Heater]

Once you have Raspian up and running on your Pi you should never have to download the entire image again for up grades.

Raspian, like Debian, is very good at keeping itself up to date.

The following command just fetches the list of current package versions available:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt-get update

The following will actually up grade your installed packages to the new versions:

Code: Select all

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

(or "$sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" which will pull in new packages if need be)

Then we have:

Code: Select all

$ sudo rpi-update

that will update the Raspi specific firmware files.

Do make a copy of your downloaded image in case something goes wrong with your working SD card image.

That's it. No more mega downloads required.

[Heater]

Ah, forgot, there is also the upgrade option under the "advance options" in raspi-config. Whatever that does. Do check the documentation.

[totoharibo]

I agree to previous posts.
If you have a big file to download use wget.
dounwload wget package before :
$ sudo apt-get install wget

hit "man wget" for more
(have a look at -c option)

[3.14159265358979323+]

Actually I did try wget -c. It didn't work. According to the man page:

'Note that -c only works with FTP servers and with HTTP servers that support the "Range" header.'

Apparently the server doesn't support this header...


Can anybody answer my actual question?

[3.14159265358979323+]

Thanks for the replies about upgrading, but they don't really help me (and anyway I've been a Debian user for a really long time). I have a number of Pis to install systems on, and I always keep the latest installer (for Raspian, and now also NOOBS) archived here. Every time a new version is made available, I download it so that's available when I need it. And I need to make best use of my limited bandwidth.

So, given that bittorrent is not practical for me, I am currently stuck with downloading the zip files. And this is not entirely reliable, and apparently not resumeable, which is a real pain when files are bigger than 1GB.

Look at this:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors

Note that most of those servers are crowdsourced, with space and bandwidth donated to that open source project. The user can select a server nearby, and can select type of service. And rsync is supported. Some of us *need* this kind of flexibility.

The Raspberry Pi is a smaller project, currently, but I'd like to think it will grow into that kind of distributed system.

[Heater]

I'm not sure why the running up dates don't help.

You have an original download that took ages to acquire. Back that up some where.

Make SD copies for your running systems and do the running updates on those as and when required.

In the event of catastrophe you can put the back up on an SD, update it and copy it for your running systems.
Back up that updated version of SD.

So you then have N running systems that are always up to date and you only ever did one mega download. IT saves all that downloading of new images and burning N new SDs from it every time there is an image update is released.

When you have new systems to roll out create their SDs from the last back up you have, updating it once on one machine prior to copying it to others.

[3.14159265358979323+]

I'm not sure why the running up dates don't help.
<snip>

I always do clean installs on new machines.

And,

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewt ... 63&t=56838

[elatllat]

a, get a real ISP or a proxy. (a few cents at rackspace maybe)
b, I can give you a zsync mirror if you want.
c, there are smaller img options http://www.cnx-software.com/2012/07/31/ ... pberry-pi/