I thought I would try slackware and decided to download using bit torrent. It was quick. About 5 seconds. I assume it hasn't worked. Does that mean there wasn't enough bandwidth available. So I need to try another time? I've got disc one from a magazine so I could use that.

Did you use a bittorrent client or just download the torrent file from a web browser?

sounds like you downloaded a .torrent file... that (small) file only contains the information your bittorrent client needs to begin the "real" download... in other words, you need to have a bittorrent client installed on your system in order to use .torrent files...

http://dessent.net/btfaq/

Thanks it downloaded now. It took about 3 hours. Not all that quick but I don't know how long it normally takes for a straightforward download of 633mb.

3 hrs for 600+ MB is pretty darn good. If you want a GUI interface, then you'll need disc 2 also; if it's just command line then I think you're fine with only downloading disc 1

I've downloaded disc two as well but I'm not sure wether to bother with 3 and 4. It's a big download and it was doing it at about 50kb per/second which I think is about normal for my 512kb service but I've never done one of that size before. Is that quicker than a straight forward download not using bit torrent?

Disk 3 and 4 are not necessary, they just contain the sources for all the programs included in Slackware cds 1 and 2 (I think Java RE is the only exception).
Bittorrent doesn't make your download go faster (well most of the times yes) but it makes your client to download from various sources (people downloading or with Slackware already downloaded, p2p, peer to peer) to use less server bandwith and allow others to download it without sacrifying the server in the process.
Bittorrent is being used more and more these days so better be ready to use it (most distributions try people to use bittorrent to download because of the reasons i gave earlier)

that's not true... disc 1 is what has the x.org gui... it also has window managers like fluxbox, xfce, blackbox, window maker, etc... disc 2 is basically the kde and gnome desktop environments (as well as the extras dir, etc.)...

a lot of people have slackware gui workstations which were installed without touching anything on disc 2... i am one of those... ;-)

also, remember to open incoming TCP ports 6881-6999 in order to get the most out of bittorrent...

http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/25.html

Good to know, thanks!