Stopped client. Grabbed all of the files I needed then used "cat" command to create one bootstrap.dat file. Put this in the ".clam" folder with my wallet.dat.
Restarted client, but it's not using the bootstrap.dat... just still loading slowly as normal... on a Linux system. Am I missing something?
It needs to be called "bootstrap.dat" all in lower case, and put in the same directory as the CLAM wallet.dat - it's ~/.clam/ by default on Linux. %APPDATA%/CLAM/ maybe on Windows.
Yes, that is what I named it, and that is the dir I put it in... still no go.
I don't have experience with the bootstrap.dat, but it seems like you used the method of combining all the bootstrap partial files to make a single bootstrap.dat, maybe you should try using the bootstrap.dat that comes in a single file, in case you want to keep the one that you have atm just rename it, copy the bootstrap that is a single file, it goes to Sat Aug 5 23:18:40 UTC 2017, so you will only have to sync around 10 days after that. you can find it at this
dooglus' post it's the first link, the second is the same but for torrent. below a quote about how to figure out if your bootstrap is working, from the same post linked before.
If you are using the QT client, it will say "importing blocks" in the lower left corner while the bootstrap.dat file is imported. That is how you can tell that the file is being used.