[tex-live] TeX Live 2008 testing - problems downloading

[George N. White III]

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Karl Berry <karl at freefriends.org> wrote:

>    I downloaded install-tl-unx.tar.gz from a mirror site yesterday, but
>    looking at the dates, there is nothing since Jun 13th.
>
> Well, obviously that mirror is bad.  What mirror is it?

I didn't keep track of them all (can't paste from the wineconsole or from
the systems at work)   I think it is more of an "internet" glitch problem,
which is probably more a function of the number of hops, and
sometimes limits on the number of ftp connections.   From home
I have had fails with:

ftp://tug.org   > 19 hops, 11 just to reach New York
ftp://ctan.cms.math.ca 20 hops (apparently umanitoba)
ftp://ftp.math.purdue.edu 18 hops
ftp://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca 18 hops
ftp://ftp://gentoo.chem.wisc.edu  18 hops

ftp://ctan.cms.math.ca sometimes doesn't allow ftp connections,
which suggests a limit on the number of connections.   Purdue
is the one I use the most.

btw -- ctan.releasenotes.org seems to be server.vergulhos.com.br, but is
only 16 hops, while the gateway for the NASA site I use is 14 hops.

>    I'm surprised that perl doesn't respect TMPDIR.
>
> It's not about perl, it is about our code.  And yes, it should use
> TMPDIR rather than hardwiring /tmp.

Forget that comment -- TMPDIR was not being set on this system.
Sorry for the noise.

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia