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From: ianh@spuddy.mew.co.uk (Ian Hastie)
Subject: Re: FYI: Download problem with Netscape
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References: <50cn40$57e@nntp.interaccess.com> <50d9tv$p2d@ordeal.cts.com>
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Date: Mon, 9 Sep 1996 23:37:23 GMT

In article <50op9a$edn@erinews.ericsson.se>,
lars.egnell@era.ericsson.se (Lars Egnell) wrote:
> In article <50n6rv$qqe@erinews.ericsson.se>, lars.egnell@era.ericsson.se 
> wrote...
> >
> >
> >I have a feeling that Netscape might download the disk images in text mode 
> >somehow. This might explain why several people including myself have had 
> >troubles booting. 
> >
> 
> This was it. I downloaded with an FTP client, and old Ericsson (286) came up 
> beautyfully in protected mode.
> 
> When downloading the disk images with Netscape under DOS/Windows, all LF:s 
> (0x0A) in the source file become prefixed with CR (0x0D). Thus the downloaded 
> image has neither the correct length nor the correct checksum.
> 
> I suspect this has to do with that the image names have no extension suffix,	
> which apparently leads Netscape to treat it as a text file. (Files with an 
> recognised extension suffix are treated correctly.) 

Sounds plausible.  Exactly the reverse of what it should be.  It *should*
select text mode *only* for recognised text extensions.  Otherwise it
should transfer binary.  It's possible to convert a text file later, you
can't unscramble a mangled binary.

> This is obviously a problem for a lot of people who are restricted to access 
> through HTTP proxies only.
> 
> It might be a good idea to rename the files e.g to *.img  (root.img instead of 
> root etc.), in order to enforce binary transfer 

Would be a better idea if Netscape fixed their software.

Ian.

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