I have been sitting her all day watching this torrent go, it's only downloading at ~59kbs, and I'm downloading 3gig

I don't know why it is going so slow. Normally, when I download, it is at 400-500kbs. Factor in having to upload, and I should be able to get half that down and half that up, or ~200kb/~250kb right?

How (im)possible would it be to run a bit client on my linux-based web server, then just download the file from there? I have SSH/shell access, and would assume my web server would have a connection faster than 500kb.

Is there a non-graphical torrent client for linux? Would my host be mad if I used 6 gig of bandwidth sharing files? Would a web server have torrent ports blocked by default? Any way to get around them if they do?

Any other ways to get this file faster?

Should I maybe just quit watching it...

of course there are non graphical clients. the original clients were exactly that. try btdownload and btdownloadcurses for a pure console client and an ncurses console client respectively.

Quite possibly your host would get mad (or it depends, but if it's a profiting one, then surely yes). Blocking the ports/slowing traffic is possible but depends on server; my ISP does not block torrents but rather slow the speed so that nothing moves in nor out faster than about 5-7kB/s. Having a connection that can do 500-1000kB/s, it makes me sick; their reason for slowing the speed down is that people share illegal stuff, and stuck the bandwith. I understand that, but I don't see why also legal data can't be shared (i.e. Linux isos), and since people can run DC and about ten dozen other file sharing clients without speed restrictions, I'd find it just fare that the speed limit would be at least a bit more (they could just as well slow other traffic down too, and increase torrents just a bit).

Anyway, if your server's admin decides to block the torrents, you probably can't (and shouldn't -- that's breaking the law, among other things) get around it.

I myself do a lot better downloading the needed images and big files using http or ftp protocol, with wget for example. I'd love to use torrent especially for Linux images (I download them once in a while since I install Linuxes for other people who don't dare do that themselves yet, and at the same time I'll try to teach them too), but because of the ISPs (nearly if not all around here) it's impossible.

EDIT: I'm not sure, though, why it doesn't disturb my ISP that I download images at 500-1000kB/s using http/ftp, but it does if I try to do the very same thing using torrents.