Bittorrent

Bittorrent HOWTO

Introduction

This is a very limited HOWTO currently. I'm just going to discuss installing it onto a GNU/Linux system, seeing as I found the installation text a little limited. Eventually I may discuss setting up your own torrents (if I try it out!)

Installation

Pre-Packaged

There's a chance that your distro already provides bittorrent. Save yourself effort and check!. If you use APT:

apt-cache search bittorrent

If you don't have apt, then use your disto's package managing GUI tool. Here's a guide to installing apt on SuSE. If you can't use APT you may need to meet Bittorrent's dependency requirements..

Pre-Requisites

You need to have Python (a scripting language) and wxPython (a library to make GUIs using Python). If you have APT installed it should be easy, with SuSE 8.2 the commands are:

# apt-get install python Python-wxGTK

Get Bittorrent Tarball

Availiable here: Bittorrent Tarball

Extract Bittorrent

I suggest you extract the whole lot to:

/usr/local/share/bittorrent

I did this because I didn't want to litter my /usr/local/bin with a dozen files. Not easy to maintain at all.

Append to /etc/mailcap

As root (or use an editor if you prefer):

echo 'application/x-bittorrent; /usr/local/share/bittorrent/btdownloadgui.py %s; test=test -n "$DISPLAY"' >> /etc/mailcap

The above should append the required string to the file /etc/mailcap

Try it Out

The Slashdot bittorrent server has a nice selection of bittorrents and currently I'm saturated on my download of the Matrix: Reloaded trailer. It works for my copy of Konqueror, although I had to show Konq where to find btdownloadgui.py, I imagine this is because I didn't restart it.

More Information?

I recommend this excellent FAQ by smiler if you have further questions.

Recommended Use

The best bittorrents are the ones provided by big profile sites like, Slashdot. These torrents are always seeded and always fast! It's the best way to get those big new files like movie trailers, game demos and even linux ISOs. As for illegal downloads, the sites are harder to find as they reject search browser robots so you need to ask your friends, and when you've found them the downloads are often slow and not seeded (so nobody is providing a full file), otherwise they can be a treasure trove. However do the world a favor and support the artists you like! Bittorrent to sample, credit card to show gratitude!