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Glaxed
April 29th, 2008, 04:27 AM
I really feel like Linux has changed my life.
I've learned everything I know about computers while using Linux, and I love the way Linux works.
I can't really think of a way to give back to the community, but seeding .deb packages seemed like a good idea.

So I consulted Google, and I found apt-torrent.
Unfortunately the project has not been active for a while - I'm not sure how it works anyway...

I would prefer a more lucid way to seed .debs, .rpm's, .yum's, .tar.gz's, .tar.bz2's that doesn't require you install the given package to seed it. Also, I would like more control over individual torrents (necessitating a GUI?).

Are there torrents for .debs for programs?
Huge popular files like Eclipse, OpenArena, <anygame>, and Java must put an immense load on community servers given the sheer amount of people who like to download them.
If someone created torrents for those .debs, I would DEFINITELY seed.
Are there existing torrents? Is there a search engine for these Linux package torrents?
How many people would benefit from a community of seeders?
Would you seed?

Edit> It is far beyond the capacity of the likes of me to host a site and or write a program that has a database of torrents with a search engine (that parses by package type, name, and or description). Although if this happened, it would be the best thing since Synaptic :D.
Edit>> Maybe this should be moved to Cafe?

alexsabree
April 29th, 2008, 04:31 AM
This is a great idea, considering how nice and friendly the Linux community is.

I would defiantly seed a little here and there when ever I could.. nice idea man!
:popcorn:

Glaxed
April 29th, 2008, 04:37 AM
I'm glad I don't sound like a complete idiot (for several reasons, plus it's kinda late at night). Thank you for your support!

Does someone want to make a post on Brainstorm or is it my duty? (I forgot my password :(.)

Glaxed
April 30th, 2008, 02:14 AM
I have requested LegalTorrents to add a GPL-like licensed software section on their torrent site. Waiting for a response.
http://www.legaltorrents.com/
http://beta.legaltorrents.com/

Ideally, I was hoping for Desktop software like Synaptic (or a 'Toggle Seeding Mode' option in Synaptic itself :D) to download, seed, and install packages... but this would be a nice start.

I don't like LinuxTracker's approach too much, but that's another option.

EDIT > Here is the response I got;


> Hello,
> I like the legaltorrents philosophy, and I think that it would be appropriate if there is a Software category for GPL/BSD/MIT (or other similar) license based software.
> If your servers have the capacity, several communities would definitely appreciate the initiative to track open source / free software.
> The Linux community especially would be in your debt. A proposed way for users to 'give back' to the community is to seed packages that they download.
> Thank you for reading, gratz to a very nice site beta!



Thank you for your kind words and support.

The suggestion for software hosting has come in several times. There
are a few reasons so far that we have not supported software as a
category to date.

Torrents are effectively an archival format, and software to be useful
must be updated and revised, sometimes fairly often with bugfixes and
new releases. There is no way to redirect an existing torrent swarm
to the latest version of a piece of software.

Several other sites, such as sourceforge and kernel.org provide
solutions for software hosting. Groups can run gforge. Are these
options not sufficient for hosting software downloads and updates?

Up until now we have not seen the way to make the Bittorrent model
work well for software, but several people have suggested it: so, I
would very much like to know specifically: what are some examples a
large software download that would work distributed as a torrent?

I'm still open to investigating it, but I would much appreciate some
specific examples of communities that face the marketing and
distribution issues where our service will assist them.



Regards,

firmit
April 30th, 2008, 08:47 AM
The idea of apt-torrent function is good. Not sure why this project got discontinued. For pachages >10MB it sure would be an idea to keep the upload-bandwith down on the main servers by using a torrent - if this is a problem.

Everyone has 10-50 kB/s upload to spare. If one were to control this deamon in a user-friendly way, I really think this would help spread updates in a faster way. I don't know how much strain the servers at ubuntu have had the last week, but I would think the activity has been high with the new release and all.

Imagine a new protocol-link : apt-torrent://latest.update :)
Maybe one for the brainstorm.ubuntu.com?

Glaxed
May 1st, 2008, 01:56 AM
These are my thoughts exactly.
Even if the servers don't need the help, would it really harm anybody?

I still think it would be awesome if a toggle torrent mode option made it into Synaptic for the next Ubuntu release.

People have complained before about ISPs choking peoples bandwith because they were using the bittorrent protocol - for legal purposes... This is a shame! They (*cough* Bellsouth *cough*) should be sued!

RATM_Owns
May 1st, 2008, 02:14 AM
Dang. Great idea.
I'd seed them.

Glaxed
May 1st, 2008, 04:23 AM
This could be a neat way to use your computer's idle time...
Just fantasizing here, but I would love a feature that turns your system into seeding mode after a set amount of idle minutes... I think a few users would like to see this idea implemented, but I'm also positive that this is a massive undertaking - and a lot to ask of from the community.
Does anyone else have any opinions on the topic?

I have a couple questions myself;
- Is this feasible at all?
- If not, is it because of problems with updating software and moving swarms to new torrents?
- Would this waste more resources than it would save?