Jump to content

Mandriva 2008 Broken genisoimage version


Phil Edwards
 Share

Recommended Posts

Well, here's a can of worms...

 

I have a script which I have used for 2 or 3 years which generates an ISO image file for burning to a CD. Since I upgraded to Mandriva 2008, I couldn't figure out why none of my CD's were readable on a Windows machine any more. The image appears to be okay and is mountable under Linux using a loopback mount, but trying to access it on a Windows box gives an error message saying "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable".

 

The problem turns out to be a little more bizarre than you might think.

 

After some sort of tantrum took place between the Debian developers/maintainers and Jörg Schilling - the author of the original cdrtools package - about whose licence was GPL compliant and lots of (IMHO) pretty childish mud slinging by both parties, the Debian guys created a fork of cdrtools and released under GPL v2.

 

The snag is that they forked a really old version, and the genisoimage program which replaces the original mkisofs has a major bug which results in corrupted ISO images when trying to write Joliet-compatible discs, i.e. discs that you want to use on a Windows machine, which probably accounts for a good 80% of the discs that people burn in the first place.

 

I'm all in favour of the principles of free and open-source software, but this seems to me to be a serious case of shooting oneself in the foot by the Debian developers. It gets worse, though, because not only Mandriva, but also SuSE, OpenSuSE, Fedora and of course Debian are now distributing a broken version of code that's worked perfectly well for at least 2 years for all their users.

 

I can't see the sense in it, it sucks, and now the only option I have now is to go and download Jörg Schillings version of the code and compile it, which totally defeats the object of what the Debian jihadists seem to have been trying to achieve. Before anybody asks, I've checked and there is no fix available for this from the 'new' cdrtools developers.

 

If there is any sense in this situation, I'm blowed if I can see it... :wall:

 

 

[moved from Software by Greg2]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...