Request: Using Bittorrent for Wesnoth files

[rko_tailor]

I wondered if it would be more prudent to begin letting Wesnoth downloads via Bittorrent. This would spread download bandwidth off of your server and maybe even improve deployment.

http://bitconjurer.org/BitTorrent/

[Gafgarion]

I am inclined to agree that BitTorrent should be considered for Wesnoth. The filesize has gotten large enough that some people have problem with traditional download methods... Also, this would ease any worries of "are we making the filesize too big?".

[Dave]

Sounds like a good idea.

If anyone would like to make Wesnoth available on BitTorrent, they have my blessing.

David

[Gafgarion]

I'm of the opinion, now, that BitTorrent might not be a feasible approach for Wesnoth distribution. The core principal of BitTorrent is distributing small bits of the file to each downloader which in turn they trade with eachother. When you have hundreds of people downloading from the same torrent at the same time it's a very effective method of distribution, however the less people you have downloading, the slower the distribution is.

The main thing going against Wesnoth here is that BfW is distributed in many formats: Source code, Windows binary, Mac binary, Linux binaries, etc.
Each type of distribution would cut the number of downloaders downloading the same file, thus making everything slower. Now, what happens say a week after a dev release when downloads have slowed? If you only have 5 or 6 people downloading at the same time, it's going to be very slow.

Blah blah blah, etc etc etc. All I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure if BitTorrent would be an approptiate method for distributing Wesnoth due to the many different types of downloads and the flux of download activity.

[Sangel]

Agreed. Right now, Bittorrent isn't particularly feasible for Wesnoth. However, I think it should be kept in mind for the 1.0 release.

[cipso]

Instead of downloading directly from wesnoth.org, you can try downloading via freecache.org...
It works by prepending "http://freecache.org/" before your link... you use
http://freecache.org/http://www.wesnoth ... -0.7.9.exe instead of http://www.wesnoth.org/files/wesnoth-windows-0.7.9.exe
It can make difference for popular files.
-cipso

[Viliam]

Please, let's try using BitTorrent now, when the Windows binaries for 1.1.2 will be released!!!


Looking at the SourceForge statistics, Windows binaries are the most frequently downloaded form; it sometimes makes more than 50% of all downloads in given version. Now it will probably be same; a few thousand downloads in a short time.

Please someone make a torrent as soon as the Windows binaries are released -- and post it here. (I would do it myself, but I do not know how.) It should be done quickly, before everyone downloads it from SourceForge. I promise to seed the file for a few weeks every time my home computer is turned on.

BTW -- is it possible to find out how many people (e.g. how many unique IPs) have downloaded a file? Just to know whether the experiment was successful.

[lwa]

BTW -- is it possible to find out how many people (e.g. how many unique IPs) have downloaded a file? Just to know whether the experiment was successful.

I suppose you just have to count how many times the torrent file has been downloaded.

[sparr]

If every mirror is a bittorrent seed then the worst case is that downloaders get the file as fast as they would from the mirrors. If any downloaders are uploading then this improvies. An no-loss improvement.

[Ken_Oh]

A torrent of the file would help me so much.

[Kestenvarn]

I'd try seeding the file, except I don't know how to get one started... never having used BT all that often in the past.

Even looked at Torrentspy for a moment there, still didn't know what was going on.

[Ken_Oh]

http://forums.ircspy.com/showthread.php?t=25216

If someone can make a torrent, whoever maintains the main Wesnoth page should link to it too. That would help a ton and a lot of people would actually prefer to use the torrent rather than just download from the hosting.

[Soliton]

That would help a ton and a lot of people would actually prefer to use the torrent rather than just download from the hosting.

I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion, is there anything wrong with the hosting provided by sourceforge?

[Viliam]

If someone can make a torrent, whoever maintains the main Wesnoth page should link to it too.

Or the torrent maker could post it in this thread.

I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion, is there anything wrong with the hosting provided by sourceforge?

Sourceforge hosting is great, and there is not much that could be improved, except for details, as:

1) It takes (as far as I know) about 3 days to mirror the files at all Sourceforge sites. So when you read the announcement that files are available at SF, when you try to download them, you get an error message; after a few days it works OK. BitTorrent allows you to download files immediately.

2) This is rather hypothetical advantage, but BitTorrent allows you to download files by pieces, so if your network connection is slow, and you can be connected in short intervals only (for example there are some technical problems that disconnect you so often that you cannot download at once files a few MB large), you still can download large files.

Except this I cannot think of any advantage over SF.

[Kestenvarn]

That and I was reading over the instructions, setting up a torrent looks to be an incredible pain in the ass for the uninitiated.