Question about bit torrent files.

Dark_Sniper* · 06-18-2005, 10:59 PM

i see that you can donwload thse type of files from software to distro's. My question i downloaded a client for it and it tells me that i may know be able to use bit torrent files. Know does thhse mean i can like download like a distro thats a bittorrent and burn them to a cd.

musicman_ace · 06-19-2005, 02:24 AM

If your distro or its mirrors have bit torrent seeds for you to download from, then yes you can download new releases via your bit torrent client. This might gain shorten your time of downloading since you can download from multiple seeders rather than a since mirror, but keep in mind that you have the possibility of downloading slower since everyone who has a bit torrent client can download from those same seeders and slow your download down. Typically, you'll see your download speed fluctuate while download bit torrent files. Once downloaded, you'll either have to burn the .iso or possibly unpack a tar.bz2 into the .iso for burning.

PS: take your time when typing, your spelling made that post hard to read

Dark_Sniper* · 06-19-2005, 02:29 AM

sorry about that i was in a rush i almost burnt up my dinner i was cooking a t-bone steak. so i will be able to know download them and burn them into a iso type file. But as you said unpack tar.bz2 how will i be able to do that. So that i can burn into a iso file.

Dark_Sniper* · 06-19-2005, 02:40 AM

i just tried downloading a bittorrent file and it poped up a little download messenger. But it has a bar that has a speed connection i dont know what to put.

musicman_ace · 06-19-2005, 09:03 AM

My bit torrent client has a folder in its config that the files get saved to. If your downloading an ISO file, sometimes they are bzipped to compress it more. I fail to see the efficiency as an ISO shouldn't gain from being compressed, but maybe I'm wrong.

jonaskoelker · 06-19-2005, 01:36 PM

Quote:

But as you said: unpack a tar.bz2 file--how will i be able to do that?

Most likely your desktop enviroment(GNOME, KDE)'s file browser (nautilus, konqueror) has associated (.tar).bz2 files with an appropriate program.

In other words: double-click it

If you don't have any gui program for decompression, try file-roller. Or do

Code:

$ tar --help #to understand what happens :)
$ tar -jxf filename.tar.bz2

Quote:

I fail to see the efficiency as an ISO shouldn't gain from being compressed.

In practice, you might be right (I don't know the data format or algorithms well enough to predict anything).

But in theory you're wrong--browse the compression faq:
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/compression-faq/
Articles 9 and 10 (part 1) are quite funny