downloading alienBOB's multilib files
 

Is there an easy way to get all of the multilib files from connie.slackware.com/~alien/multilib? I've tried:

1.) wget - won't use wildcards on an http server, and trying to get the whole folder just gets me index.html
2.) ftp - it's not an ftp server and I can't login anonymously via gftp. I wasn't expecting this to work, it was just something else to try.
3.) rsync - If this could work, I may not be using the right syntax. I tried (-n for a dry run first):

And it just sat there doing nothing until I hit ctl-c.

Obviously I could download each file from my web browser but I figured there had to be a more elegant Unix-y way without all the clicky-clicky. Are the files hosted on an ftp server anywhere?

You want something like this:
wget -m -nH --cut-dirs=3 http://connie.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/13.0/

Try not to slam him too much. You might want a slight variation on this, but this is the general idea. Like --cut-dirs=3 means cut ~alien, multilib, and 13.0 from the directory tree.

I've detected -m ascends to the parent directory and downloads 13.0, 13.1, etc. I'd personally use "wget -r -np".

There's more than one way to do it.

I ended up trying wadsworth's lftp suggestion after reading the manpage. I didn't know I even had that program, but it looks very powerful. I've had a lot of frustrations with wget, but it looks like it would also do what I wanted with some more research.

Thanks for all of your suggestions. Lftp worked perfectly and I've got the multilib packages now. I can also use it to get the KDE 4.4 packages too.

I like this according to the man page, but it ends up downloading everything to this directory:
connie.slackware.com/~alien/multilib/13.0/

So it sure works, but I just like getting the files where I expect them. Cuts out other steps later.

My original solution is more useful for downloading a whole distribution which does have a directory tree. This works well for FTP but for HTTP, it downloads other website files you are not interested in. Not good. So I made an improvement.
This will only download the files in the specified directory that end in .txz.

Am I missing anything? What is the problem with ascending to the parent directory? Does that do something nasty I shouldn't be doing? I'm thinking this is a really good solution now. Bravo for making me think about it a little harder ;-)