Hi :)
Torrenting is built-in to most Gnu&Linux systems and most have a default
torrenting-client built-in.
However until you actually try it yourself it's a bit scary. It sounds
like a normal download (so why not stick to that, right?) except for some
weird thing where outsiders somehow have access to stuff on your machine.
Doesn't that mean they can plonk what they like onto your machine?
(NO.). Also it seems quite complicated because you download this tiny
file and then that's it? How come the normal download is so much larger
and why can't the tiny torrent just double-click to install LO!!? It's
trying to open some other program! wtf! Does that mean i've been hacked
already!!!?
Also people say this or that torrenting client is a nightmare and you
MUST use a different one and then go off on some weird techie chat about
weird esoteric stuff. This is especially worrying in Windows where you
have to try to figure out which torrenting client, how to set it up,
what's going on etc.
Truth is.
1. Just like i was saying about Anchor points yday you can use any of
the torrenting clients to get the result you want. You can't really make
a 'wrong' choice. Once you have used one for a while or tried a few you
start to learn things and want certain features and are not impressed
with others. That's when you start finessing down to a particular
torrenting client. Before that they all work in very much the same way
and achieve much the same results.
2. That little tiny file is made to tell the torrenting client exactly
what to download and what to allow to be uploaded from your machine.
Everything else is still blocked. It can't be used as a tunnel onto your
machine to do anything other than deal with the single thing you are
trying to download.
3. The other program that opens when you double-click on that tiny
download is the torrenting-client. That then communicates with
headquarters to ask for the download to start. HQ looks up who has parts
of the download file. Your torrenting clients starts taking parts from
everyone it can, grabbing more from the ones that can give it fastest
(usually people that are nearest). As it goes it keeps checking that you
are only getting bits that belong to the file. It's constantly doing the
equivalent of Md5sum (or Sha) checking for you. Anything slightly weird
gets rejected and reported to HQ.
4. When you have a few bits of the puzzle your torrenting client starts
offering outsiders those parts, NOT any other random other thing on your
machine. It's made specifically to deal with the file in question. If
your machine was heavily infected it doesn't want to accidentally pass
any of that on so it tightly focusses on just the file it's been asked to
deal with. The upshot is that you start dishing out that file to anyone
else that is nearby so their download starts getting faster. If new
people join they will be getting parts you don't have yet and those
become available to your client so your download gets faster and faster
too.
Normal downloading means downloading from just 1 place. If that is in
Romania and you are in the US then it's likely to be slow. If you are in
New Zealand then even slower. Sometimes you get a choice of "mirrors" to
download from but how do you choose? What if that mirror is having
troubles today? What if it's daytime and the mirror is dealing with
millions of requests?
So torrenting is faster because it automatically chooses all the fastest
places to download from and spreads the load between them. If one slows
down it automatically switches to using others.
Plus if you get part-way through a download and need to reboot or switch
you machine off or if you close the torrenting client then the parts you
already have are kept and logged in that tiny little file. When you
switch on again the client checks all the parts you have to make sure
they are all perfect and then resumes downloading. I know Firefox,
probably Chrome, Opera and others also do something like that but
torrenting is mare careful about security and about being perfect.
Generally after downloading by torrent i try to repay the system by
allowing my file to be used to help others upload. Some people limit
that to until 2x the file size has been uploaded from your machine. So
downloaded once, uploaded twice. I generally just change the default
settings to let it upload as much as it wants. But i don't have the
torrenting client open very often so it's not always uploading.
Sometimes i end up uploading a pitifully small amount and feel really
guilty that i didn't repay enough. Others i upload the file 10 times and
feel great. Once or twice i have been told that my part is no longer
perfect and wont be used anymore but that's generally when the
headquarters for that download has been taken down (eg Wolvix stopped
developing so publicly due to Wolven's wife having a baby and suddenly
Wolven didn't have so much free time to develop, openSUSE released a
newer version so their ancient one got taken off)
So, if you are on Windows and need to choose a torrenting client just
choose any of them, for now. Later on you can choose a different one and
that will pick up on all the downloads you have going at that time. For
now, until you work out what you really want from a torrenting client
just go with any of them.
If you are on Gnu&Linux similarly, just stick with the default one until
you know what you want. I've always been happy with the default one. In
Ubuntu 12.04 that is "Transmission BitTorrent". I'm not sure if the
Windows version of that one is better or worse or about the same
[shrugs].
So, like LO itself you will hear a lot of FUD out there about which is
best or whether it's a good thing to do or not. All i can say is i was
very paranoid and wary about it at first but now i use it a lot because
it's much faster and safer (also like LO).
It is just a tool though and all tools can be used for bad purposes so
doubtless people use it for porn or illegal copying of hollywood movies
and all the rest but it's your choice what you use it for. Just use it
for the files you want. Don't let yourself get side-tracked into
choosing downloads you don't want! But that's true of normal downloading
too. It's just faster to go astray with torrenting because it downloads
faster.
Regards from
Tom :)
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Lloyd <tim.lloyd@gmx.com>
To:
Cc: users@global.libreoffice.org
Sent: Tuesday, 14 May 2013, 4:21
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Downloader Not Working
just a reminder that LO can be downloaded via the bit torrent where I
can see 13 seeds for the Fedora version alone.
If possible, don't put a strain on the LO servers, use the bit torrent
and then seed back to allow other users to download :)
Cheers
On 05/14/2013 01:09 PM, Scott Castaline wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
On 05/13/2013 06:39 PM, Mark LaPierre wrote:
Hey All,
I get a 404 error from the libre office download server. I've
tried from two different Win XP machines and from my CentOS
machine. All are running Fire Fox.
I tried to download the Win version and the linux version. Both
just got me a 404 error.
Is anyone else having a problem with the downloader or is it just
me?
I have already updated to 4.03 yesterday, but I just tried accessing
it now and it (stopped at downloading prompt) seems fine, at least for
Linux.
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