[Cialug] Ubuntu

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 1:34 PM, David Champion <dchampion at visionary.com> wrote:
> Get yer Ubuntu here...
>
>  http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/04/24/1321208
>
>  In the slashdot comments there are links to torrents for both Ubuntu and
> Kubuntu... don't know why the Ubuntu site doesn't have one torrent, instead
> of dozens of FTP links...

I know the answer to this one...

The server administrators dislike the torrents because they cause
headaches (the tracker I think). I (the webmaster for Ubuntu.com)
dislike the torrents because they're far more difficult for new users
to understand.

Most computers have no BT software installed so if we pimp the BT
links we're going to have a lot of headaches. If you're in the know
the torrents are there to be found. They're there on the same page as
the DVD downloads (which aren't mirrored enough places for me to
advertise yet so commented out in the source code) and the complete
list of mirrors.

As it is, the download process is far more difficult than I'd like it.
I wish there was a way to default the mirror selection to something
reasonable. It'd be nice if the user just had to click the download
button and the defaults would be sane for that user.

(the reason I don't pre-select a mirror is because the application
servers are behind web caches so the only way to do it that I know of
is with XHR, which I've been experimenting with but the POSTs on
release day kill the backends.)

I'd love to discuss this though.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode