Baslinux mailing list

[qwms-avib AT dea.spamcon.org]

Ron Clarke wrote:
> 
> ALL the packages are listed there, and NONE of them 
> have any files in them.  

That means it found all the packages, but every one of
them was un-readable.

> I have since checked every one of those packages (as 
> in gunzip -t xxx.tgz) and every one without exception 
> got the thumbs down - invalid tgzp magic.

They are not recognized as gzips.

> Don't know why, they were downloaded from legit slakware 
> mirrors, in at least three different sessions, and using 
> Arachne and WizLynx on different days. They were downloaded 
> by, and into, a DOS system.  Then loaded onto an external 
> ZIP drive for transfer into the target machine.

Somewhere in their travels they were altered in some way.
What is their current size?  It is possible that at some
stage, a helpful program (WizLynx?) automatically unzipped
them for you.  If so, you may be able to fix them simply
by gzipping them again (the installation routine expects
compressed packages only).

> Would that have caused any damage to all but the BL2-02.ZIP ?

Well, bl2-02.zip was downloaded from a different server and
it was a zip.  The gzipped packages might have been treated
differently by your software.  I have heard of this happening
before, where a package was automatically unzipped but the
name was not changed (that caused no end of confusion).  So
look at the size -- that should indicated if it has been
prematurely unzipped.

Cheers,
Steven