MiKTeX and proTeXt ⇒ Unable to download ProTeXt distro

[AndyD]

I have recently persuaded a colleague to move on to LaTeX, from Word. Since he runs under WinXP, it seemed sensible to use proTeXt, as the recommended solution for this environment. I therefore went to the ProTeXt site to try and download one of the 'full' distros (e.g. the .iso). My colleague is not particularly technical, so I wanted to make things as easy as possible for him.

Unfortunately, when I click on one of the links I get prompted for an ftp password - I have tried both guest and anonymous logins with no difference. What then happens then is that I get a listing of the various files on the ftp server, which is what I would hope for. However, if I try to actually download anything then get errors, e.g.

"The Finder can’t complete the operation because some data in “ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso” can’t be read or written.
(Error code -36)"

Note that I am running OS X on a MacBook - although I would hope that this would not have any impact on a simple download, ftp or not. Note also that all my other downloads work fine and that I have no proxies defined.

Any help most appreciated

[AndyD]

Addendum - looks like it may be an OS X problem - so much for OS X being the perfect OS

See here:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... 0&tstart=0

[josephwright]

ProTeXt is a Windows TeX distribution, so its not going to be much use for Mac OS X anyway. What's wrong with MacTeX for you? (ProTeXt includes things which a vanilla Windows systems does not have, but Unix-based systems tend to, such as a PostScript viewer.)

[AndyD]

As already noted, this download is not for my use, but is for a colleague, who runs WinXP.
I already use TeXShop on my MacBook, which works fine for me.

[AndyD]

Success: I managed to download both the iso and md5 files no problem, using the command line ftp. So it looks as if the problem lies with the OS X Finder and its integration with ftp, as implied in the Apple support forum that I linked to previously.

For full results see below. I'm not sure why the download completed with a timeout, but the data seems sound which is good enough for now. Note that the ftp url was a cut and paste from the ProTeXt website.

Code: Select all

$ ftp ftp://ftp.fernuni-hagen.de/pub/windows/win32/ProTeXt/
Connected to ftp.fernuni-hagen.de.
220-----------------------------------------------------------------
220-
220-      U       U
220-   U  U       U  U          FernUniversitaet in Hagen
220-  UU  U   U   U  UU         Zentrum fuer Medien und IT
220-  UU   U     U   UU         D - 58084 Hagen
220-   UU    UUU    UU          
220-     UUU     UUU            Tel.: +49 2331 987-4444
220-        UUUUU               E-mail: ftpadmin@fernuni-hagen.de
220-
220-  Willkommen beim Ftp-Server der FernUni in Hagen!
220-
220-  Alle Aktionen werden fuer statistische Zwecke geloggt. Wenn Sie
220-  dies nicht wuenschen, verlassen Sie den Server mit dem Befehl
220-
220-        quit
220-
220-  Ansonsten viel Erfolg!
220------------------------------------------------------------------
220 
331 Please specify the password.
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
200 Switching to Binary mode.
250 Directory successfully changed.
250 Directory successfully changed.
250 Directory successfully changed.
250-Willkommen zur Installation von ProTeXt
250-=========================================
250-
250-ProTeXt ist ein Projekt der TuG, Dante und der FernUni.
250-
250-Hinweise zur Installation:
250-
250-0. Entpacken Sie die Datei protext-*.zip in einem leeren Verzeichnis
250-auf Ihrem Rechner.
250-
250-1. Starten Sie ue?ber den Windows-Explorer die Datei Setu.exe .
250-
250-2. Installieren Sie ProTeXt, mit Hilfe unseres
250-"Installationsskripts".
250-
250-3. Fragen und Probleme?
250-
250-Schreiben Sie an:
250-
250-    FernUniversitaet in Hagen
250-    Zentrum fuer Medien und IT
250-    z.H. Th. Feuerstack
250-    58084 Hagen
250-
250-    E-Mail: Thomas.Feuerstack@fernuni-hagen.de
250 Directory successfully changed.
ftp> dir
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||23133|).
150 Here comes the directory listing.
-r-xr-xr-x    1 ftp      ftp      821488567 Oct 21 14:24 ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.exe
-rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp            59 Oct 21 14:22 ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.exe.md5
-r-xr-xr-x    1 ftp      ftp      834027520 Oct 21 14:26 ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso
-rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp            59 Oct 21 14:22 ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso.md5
-rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp           586 Jan 07  2008 README1ST.txt
-rw-r--r--    1 ftp      ftp      4497694720 Nov 20 12:43 openSUSE-11.2-DVD-i586.iso
226 Directory send OK.
ftp> binary
200 Switching to Binary mode.
ftp> get ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso.md5
local: ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso.md5 remote: ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso.md5
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||35752|).
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso.md5 (59 bytes).
100% |****************************************************************************************|    59        0.76 KiB/s    00:00 ETA
226 Transfer complete.
59 bytes received in 00:00 (0.76 KiB/s)
ftp> get ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso
local: ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso remote: ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso
229 Entering Extended Passive Mode (|||44110|).
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for ProTeXt-2.2.1-102109.iso (834027520 bytes).
100% |****************************************************************************************|   795 MiB    1.08 MiB/s    00:00 ETA

421 Service not available, remote server timed out. Connection closed.
834027520 bytes received in 13:14 (1.00 MiB/s)
ftp: No control connection for command
ftp> exit

Looks like OS X is really the problem