I have spent the past week trying to download a good iso for OpenSUSE11. I have tried multiple ways of downloading this file. Everything from download starting at a specific time (fair access policy restriction), using FTP, HTTP, and Torrents, to basic windoze iso download. The burn speed has been at 32x (max), 16x, and even 1x. EVERY time I check the md5sum, it's wrong.
The main goal for me is to install this distro on my old PC so I can become more familiar with Linux before I commit to the change over from (shudders) Windoze. I'm currently running:
Intel Celeron 900mhz
128mb ram
30gb hard drive
Unsure about the rest because this system is over 7 years old and data is now scarce on it. does anyone know what I am doing wrong. I've never had this many problems burning an iso onto cd before now. My current count is 5 failed attempts. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hi,

If you're checking the discs md5sum, you will likely get a false negative due to the fact that if the end of the data isn't at the end of a sector, the rest will be padded with zeros til that sector is full.

I would suggest using a real verification method for what you're attempting to accomplish. You don't specify, but it sounds like you're in Win trying to burn the disc. If this is true, I've looked around for stuff before, off-hand my personal opinion would be to try the free burning tool, ImgBurn http://www.imgburn.com/
This has an option to verify a discs contents, even if it didn't burn the disc, by comparing it directly with the image bit for bit. Then, if the image and the disc are the same, and the image matches the md5sum, you can presume that the disc's data would match the md5sum if it weren't for the extra padding.

1. You can fix a bad iso with torrent (download new torrent, stop it, replace the iso in the folder with the bad iso, check data integrity and resume torrent)

2. You will not be able to install opensuse on a PC with 128MB RAM

Just to clarify what has been said, but perhaps not entirely clearly - you should be checking the md5sum against the iso you downloaded before you burn it. Sorry if you'd gathered that already.

Umm... about openSUSE. I suggest you to choose another Distro, because I did install openSUSE and after 2x days 16hours each day, fighting that distro to become my fiend end up with installing my next choosen one > Kubuntu... think about it...

p.s. if you are sure about md5sum just go for it and install, but don't format Windows. If you succeed and everything looks fine your good. Also you can boot and check files < there's menu at the distro booting screen