[wellylug] Bittorrent under Linux

[David Antliff]

On Thu, 31 Aug 2006, Roger Young wrote:
> I am approaching madness (or at least a very grumpy state)
> trying to get decent download speeds with Azureus under Linux.

I have occasionally used BitTorrent and MLDonkey - both can 'potentially' 
deliver good speeds, but often they don't.

Things to bear in mind:

0. BitTorrent can be very slow (or even non-functional) if a file is 
unpopular, because it's only available if it's 'active'. This is when I 
usually try MLDonkey instead, as (by default) downloaded files remain 
shared. Popular files are easy to download.

1. don't saturate your uplink - limit uploads to *something* lower than 
your max. 128kbps uplink is approx 15kB/s.

2. some programs like MLDonkey have the concept of a 'high' port - this is 
direct-through-your-firewall port that allows a larger class of 
connections. I have been told it's not a security issue insomuch as 
MLDonkey isn't... anyway, it made quite a difference for me.

3. accumulate 'credits' - some programs provide better results when you 
share 'popular' stuff - the more you upload, the more 'credits' you get to 
download. I really don't know much about how these work.

4. some ISPs deliberately restrict P2P to discourage its use. I am with 
IHUG too however, and I hadn't noticed anything like this.

-- 
David.