Difference between direct download and torrent download....

[emigrant]

hi,
what is the difference between direct download and torrent download,
why its encouraged to use Bittorent to download Karmic?

thank you.

[TheNessus]

hi,
what is the difference between direct download and torrent download,
why its encouraged to use Bittorent to download Karmic?

thank you.
encouraged to lessen the pressure made on the servers by millions of users. Users can just download from each other instead, thus making the direct download not as sluggish and prevent the servers from crashing even.

[emigrant]

then torrents won't get pressure from high traffic?

[Alpaca?]

Torrents are easier on bandwidth, as they are peer to peer. This means your downloading from other people who are sharing, and downloading the file. This results in little server strain. You need a torrent client however, if your using Ubuntu already, Transmission should be pre-installed. If your running windows, uTorrents probably your best bet.

the uTorrent team wrote an excellent beginers guide to bitorrent here:
http://www.utorrent.com/documentation/beginners-guide

Direct downloads are just that, straight downloads from servers. The problem is, since Karmic just came out, a lot of people will be downloading from the servers, which strains the servers and slows down download times, along with costing the server providers more money. Hence why they suggest Bittorent.

Hope that helped

[~sHyLoCk~]

then torrents won't get pressure from high traffic?

Torrent is peer to peer, you are not adding load to a particular server while downloading, you are downloading as fragments or pieces from various sources, "seeders" who are uploading [who have 100% of the file] and also the leechers or the other downloaders besides you. You must seed back or upload or share with these leechers as you download and even after your download is complete [atleast for a while]. Sharing is the concept here.

[JillSwift]

http://brucewagner.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/bittorrent.jpg

[emigrant]

@ all thank you very much for your input.

uploading part is uploaded to the same server or to a new server.
since 2 things happen here (uploading and downloading) it seems more traffic than direct download.
(sorry im very unaware of torrent things :(...)

and isn't this a disadvantage for those who are using 'limited quota' internet packages, if the file size is 600mb theyd probably need to loose 1GB?

[emigrant]

@ JillSwift (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=380445) thanks for the image,
it solves my first doubt in post#7 :)

[pipou24]

Another advantage of bittorrent is that each part of the file you recieved is verified (via SHA or MD5) so that you can be sure your iso is not corrupted.
But be sure to download .torrent files from official servers !

[faical117]

With torrent download each part of the file is verified bit/bit so you don't get a corrupted file. :popcorn:

[lovinglinux]

Check out the BitTorrent optimization and troubleshooting guide (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1259923). It explains how BitTorrent works, how to setup the client, how to troubleshoot download issues and more.

[emigrant]

thanks for the guide lovinglinux (http://ubuntuforums.org/member.php?u=649167),
i will go through it. :)