My Journey to Linux

easyt50 · 14 May 2026 16:55

Welcome to the forum @vishnu.
I hope you enjoy your time here.

nevj · 14 May 2026 22:26

There is a program called shasum which computes the checksum on the downloaded copy.
Look up the man page … man shasum … it will show you what options to use.

Compare its result with the .sha file on the download site.

cat-man · 14 May 2026 22:43

Many thanks Neville

cat-man · 15 May 2026 14:44

By the way this is my 2 nutty and lovely cats . The first one is Lune she is a bit over one year old the second is Ranni she is 4 years old.

easyt50 · 15 May 2026 20:48

Now we know why you are called the ‘cat-man’.

cat-man · 15 May 2026 21:03

yes now you know why

cat-man · 17 May 2026 14:21

I tried to logg in to its foss on Cachy os with firefox and got this ?

nevj · 17 May 2026 15:04

I dont understand why an IP address is involved?
Do you have a misconfigured firewall?

cat-man · 17 May 2026 15:05

no i have no clue whats up. no i got proton vpn if it can be that and it gives diffrent ip depending wich server im logged into

abu · 17 May 2026 15:29

Close the existing login first.

If you are logged in from Stockholm and then try another login as the same user from Sydney (example), I assume it will be rejected.

cat-man · 17 May 2026 15:54

ok. i will try that .Thank you

cat-man · 17 May 2026 17:05

Thank you Alfred it worked

pdecker · 17 May 2026 17:59

Ubuntu also has a built-in option, disks. I think maybe it is part of Gnome rather than Ubuntu.

daniel.m.tripp · 18 May 2026 01:51

Some distros use md5sum instead of shasum…

I kinda prefer md5sum - because shasum has different variants for different bit lengths - e.g. sha256 and sha512… but it seems most distros are going to shasum…

Anyway - the big distros usually have checksum files on the server you download from - some offer them on a page alongside the ISO file - but - some don’t make it easy to get the checksums…

I usually download Linux distros from a mirror in Australia : mirror.aarnet(.edu.au) - you can browse the folders for each distro - as html (i.e. you don’t need an FTP client) - and in the folders for e.g. Ubuntu 24.04.4 :

There’s a file : https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/24.04.4/SHA256SUMS that contains sha256 summaries for each of the files in that folder - it’s just a text file :

faabcf33ae53976d2b8207a001ff32f4e5daae013505ac7188c9ea63988f8328 *ubuntu-24.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso
c3514bf0056180d09376462a7a1b4f213c1d6e8ea67fae5c25099c6fd3d8274b *ubuntu-24.04.3-live-server-amd64.iso
c74833a55e525b1e99e1541509c566bb3e32bdb53bf27ea3347174364a57f47c *ubuntu-24.04.3-wsl-amd64.wsl
3a4c9877b483ab46d7c3fbe165a0db275e1ae3cfe56a5657e5a47c2f99a99d1e *ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
e907d92eeec9df64163a7e454cbc8d7755e8ddc7ed42f99dbc80c40f1a138433 *ubuntu-24.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso
9b2f7730dc68227dd04a9f3e5eab86ad85caf556b8606ad94f1f29ff5c4fd3f5 *ubuntu-24.04.4-wsl-amd64.wsl

e.g. :
Downloaded the SHA256SUMS file, and the ISO for Ubuntu 24.04.4 for desktop :


╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  wget https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/24.04.4/SHA256SUMS                                                                                         1 ↵
--2026-05-18 08:53:13--  https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/24.04.4/SHA256SUMS
Resolving mirror.aarnet.edu.au (mirror.aarnet.edu.au)... 202.158.214.106, 2001:388:30bc:cafe::beef
Connecting to mirror.aarnet.edu.au (mirror.aarnet.edu.au)|202.158.214.106|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 594
Saving to: ‘SHA256SUMS’

SHA256SUMS                                 100%[======================================================================================>]     594  --.-KB/s    in 0s      

2026-05-18 08:53:14 (123 MB/s) - ‘SHA256SUMS’ saved [594/594]


╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  wget https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/24.04.4/ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
--2026-05-18 08:52:41--  https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/ubuntu/releases/24.04.4/ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
Resolving mirror.aarnet.edu.au (mirror.aarnet.edu.au)... 202.158.214.106, 2001:388:30bc:cafe::beef
Connecting to mirror.aarnet.edu.au (mirror.aarnet.edu.au)|202.158.214.106|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 6655619072 (6.2G) [application/octet-stream]
Saving to: ‘ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso’

ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso           100%[======================================================================================>]   6.20G  3.71MB/s    in 28m 16s 

2026-05-18 09:20:57 (3.74 MB/s) - ‘ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso’ saved [6655619072/6655619072]

╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  ls -al
total 6498046
drwxrwxr-x+  2 x family          4 May 18 08:53 .
drwxrwxr-x+ 14 x family         26 May 18 08:52 ..
-rwxrwxr-x   1 x family        594 Feb 12 22:46 SHA256SUMS
-rwxrwxr-x   1 x family 6655619072 Feb 10 09:41 ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  cat SHA256SUMS 
faabcf33ae53976d2b8207a001ff32f4e5daae013505ac7188c9ea63988f8328 *ubuntu-24.04.3-desktop-amd64.iso
c3514bf0056180d09376462a7a1b4f213c1d6e8ea67fae5c25099c6fd3d8274b *ubuntu-24.04.3-live-server-amd64.iso
c74833a55e525b1e99e1541509c566bb3e32bdb53bf27ea3347174364a57f47c *ubuntu-24.04.3-wsl-amd64.wsl
3a4c9877b483ab46d7c3fbe165a0db275e1ae3cfe56a5657e5a47c2f99a99d1e *ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
e907d92eeec9df64163a7e454cbc8d7755e8ddc7ed42f99dbc80c40f1a138433 *ubuntu-24.04.4-live-server-amd64.iso
9b2f7730dc68227dd04a9f3e5eab86ad85caf556b8606ad94f1f29ff5c4fd3f5 *ubuntu-24.04.4-wsl-amd64.wsl
╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  sha256sum ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso
3a4c9877b483ab46d7c3fbe165a0db275e1ae3cfe56a5657e5a47c2f99a99d1e  ubuntu-24.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso

Note : sha256sum can take a while to run - like minutes - before outputing… But you can see my result matches the checksum published…

If you really really wanted to make sure - you could output each checksum into a separate file and run diff over them :

╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  echo "3a4c9877b483ab46d7c3fbe165a0db275e1ae3cfe56a5657e5a47c2f99a99d1e" > result
╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  grep desktop SHA256SUMS |grep 24.04.4 |awk '{print $1}' > source
╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤  diff source result
╭─x@titanii ~/BNZ/LINUXISO/Ubuntu/24.04.4  
╰─➤

Which returns nothing - because they’re identical

There’s probably a better way than using output files… Google suggested this :
diff <(echo "string1") <(echo "string2")

callpaul.eu · 18 May 2026 04:33

Thank you so much for that link.

I have 2 netbooks in my workshop that were looking for a clean install but will only run 32bit versions and only have 2gb memory.

So plan to download mint 19.3 32 bit xfce to get them going again. Then use them over the summer when clients come in desperate for a working computer whilst on holiday and in need.

Been looking around for the older version but had not found one.

thewolf191 · 18 May 2026 15:43

My first linux distro was ubuntu 25.04 LTS and even though the DE was not like windows and was unfamilliar I got adapted to the GNOME very quickly and it was very easy to use but sad that you got issues with ubuntu 24 and I use arch linux now

cat-man · 18 May 2026 15:59

I use both Fedora and Cachy os now and like them very much both of them

daniel.m.tripp · 18 May 2026 22:53

AARNET is where I first downloaded Slackware 3.0 from in 1995!

And they still host Slackware 3.3!!!

They are a repository for Debian going wayback - but - they only have ISO for the latest (Trixie)…

Postscript :
Hmmm - no they don’t! Nothing older than Bullseye - i.e. they don’t even have Stretch, never mind Jessie or Wheezy!

I wonder why that is? They’ve got 12 years worth of Ubuntu LTS going back to 14.04 (i.e. the good ol’ Unity days).

Eh? Sure you don’t mean 24.04 LTS? Odd numbered releases are not LTS…

nevj · 18 May 2026 23:04

Back in the 1980’s one of the founders of AARNET helped us to setup a Unix interface to CSIRONET.
That was when BSD first had sockets… one of the key steps to making networking possible.

nevj · 18 May 2026 23:41

There was a phase in networking, when the world consisted of a collage of different networks, each with their own protocols, and connected via bridges.
I do believe AARNET was or intended to be one of those independent networks. Hence the name.

It changed quite quickly and everyone adopted arpanet protocol.