Why should I use this “jigdo” program? I prefer a simple HTTP or FTP download!
Today, there are nearly 300 Debian mirrors (which contain the complete Debian distribution as .deb files), but far fewer machines serving Debian CD images. As a result, the CD image servers are constantly overloaded. Additionally, nobody is very enthusiastic about setting up more CD servers because of the tremendous amounts of wasted bandwidth (some people keep restarting failed downloads instead of resuming from the point where the connection was closed) and because a regular mirror is more attractive (it allows continuous upgrades of Debian, or using the “testing”/”unstable” distribution instead of the “stable” one). jigdo tries to make the most out of this situation, by downloading the data for the CD images from one of the 300 mirrors. However, these mirrors only hold individual .deb files, not the CD image, so some additional manipulation of the data is necessary to produce one big CD image file from the many small .deb files. Do not be afraid to try out jigdo!
