(OT) Bit Torrent usage ...

[Mike McCarty]

Erik Hemdal wrote:
>  
> 
> 
> 
>>Can anyone explain, in ordinary language, what possible
>>advantage it would give me over, say, wget?
>>
>>Mike
> 
> 
> I'll try to help.
> 
> If you use a conventional tool, even wget, you are making one connection to
> a remote server.  If that server goes down, or slows down, your transfer
> slows down too.  Regardless of the bandwidth you have available, you are
> limited by the bandwidth of the remote server (or of the slowest link
> between you).
> 
> Again, if the transfer is interrupted, you lose.  You must start again.
> More than once, I've lost a complete Red Hat download because, after
> downloading 80% of (say) a CD image, the connection failed somewhere and all
> was lost.

I've never experienced that "wget -c" failed to get a complete
intact image. Could you please explain in what way torrent could
complete a download that wget could not?

> 
> BitTorrent establishes multiple connections between your computer and others
> which have the files you want.  The  files are transferred in multiple
> pieces.  If a single connection fails, you only lose a portion of the data
> you are transferring; the previously downloaded parts are still valid.

How is this different from wget? (Aside from possibly having to do some
manual intervention?) You seem to be saying that if a server fails, wget
cannot be used to get the rest from another.


[snip]

> In payment for a more-efficient download, your system also turns into a
> server for the length of time you are running BitTorrent.  So others are
> downloading from you at the same time you are downloading from others.  

Well, my downloads are already pushing 70% or so occupancy of my ADSL,
so I don't think that having more than one source is going to make
it much if any faster, since it's approaching saturation anyway.

Mike
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