Better BitTorrenting on OSX.
BitTorrent is a great tool for downloading large files very quickly. It does this by sharing the burden. Everyone who is downloading also uploads. So the more people interested, the faster it downloads.
The problem I’ve had is that my uploads choke up my connection so my downloads go very slowly. The solution is to limit my upload speed. The other problem is that the OSX GUI version doesn’t let you limit upload speed. So I’ve been using the command line tools, which work very well. The problem with the using the commandline tools is that there is a good chunk of typing involved and I don’t use it very often so I have to look up the aruments everytime. So I came up with this line to add to my .profile which makes using the commandline easier that even the GUI:
alias btdl='~/Applications/BitTorrent/btdownloadheadless.py --max_upload_rate 16
--saveas ~/Desktop/incoming/ --url `pbpaste`'
Line break added for web display. It should all be on one line.
Now all I have to do is copy the URL for the .torrent file I want to download, open a terminal and type ‘btdl’. And it downloads what ever I want directly to my incoming folder.
Using this method I was able to download both Beatallica Albums (The Beatle’s songs with Metallica’s style) at an average speed of 22mb per second. Thanks to Matt Haughey for the Beatallica tip.
Xian 12:01 AM, 04.07.04 - p-link
Comments: Better BitTorrenting on OSX.
You might also want to check out btlaunchmany.py and btlaunchmanycurses.py - launch one of them into the background, or in a Screen session (for the Curses version), and all you have to do is drop a torrent in a folder.
launchmany then detects the newly available torrent file and starts transferring. Move the torrent file away, transfer stops. Move it back in, transfer resumes.
I use this, along with a cron job, to make torrents run at times when I’m asleep or at work and disabled when I’m home.
l.m.orchard - 10:23AM Wednesday, 04.07.04
Very nice. Thanks for the tips.
I’ve used BT a grand total of 5 times so far, so I haven’t messed around with with the other interfaces yet, but they sound like they are very much worth checking out.
I’m impressed by the tech, but I hope they can improve the GUI experience & transparency. As it is not I can’t see it being used for general purpose distribution of anything.
Xian - 11:08AM Wednesday, 04.07.04
Azureus is worth a try.
azureus.sourceforge.net
gulliver - 10:39AM Tuesday, 06.15.04
Post a Comment: