.md5 use

[yawningdog]

Embarassing newbie question. How do I do a parity check with one of those md5 files?

[pave_spectre]

Are you trying to verify the integrity of a downloaded file using md5?

Assuming you have an md5sum program you can just use the command md5sum /path/to/downloaded file and the compare the output to the information contained in the .md5 file.

Depending onwhich md5sum program you use you are supposed to be able to automatically compare a file with its md5sum in an md5 file, but I have never yet had that work properly.