Rsync the Wonderful

Rsync is just a great command. Problems with a download, md5sum not correct, download interrupted, or a CD with a horrible scratch and facing into downloading the entire iso file again? Not a problem.

If repairing from a damaged CD, first copy the data to a file with dd, e.g.:

dd if=/dev/hdc of=ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso

To get a list from a download server, for example Ubuntu:

rsync rsync://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/releases.ubuntu.com/releases/

To only download the missing/replacement chunks use, for example with this Ubuntu iso file:

rsync -avLP rsync://ftp.esat.net/mirrors/releases.ubuntu.com/releases/gutsy/ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso

Then burn a new CD.

Mac System 7

Strangely enough you can run the Mac-on-a-Stick Mac OS 7 emulator on the Linux desktop via Wine: it's a Mac emulator running on Windows, running on Linux. Old Mac software is available to download at http://www.info.apple.com/support/oldersoftwarelist.html.