Re: [libreoffice-users] Downloader Not Working

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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>
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