[Cialug] Ubuntu

[Mark Hesseltine]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 8:31 PM, David Champion <dchampion at visionary.com> wrote:
>
> Matthew Nuzum wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
> >
>  I agree that torrents aren't perfect - but I think putting a torrent option
> on the download page would be a useful option. The new users who don't know
> what "bit torrent" is won't bother with it, but the ones who do use it would
> have the option, without having to search through a slashdot posting
> (admittedly that took an extra 30 seconds for me) to find the torrents. And
> it could potentially save you some money in bandwidth fees (if your ISP is
> charging on a metered basis).
>
>  Just seems to me like it's being hidden or repressed, which feels
> counter-intuitive for a OSS distribution.
>
>  As a counter-point - Mandriva only offered download to Club members in
> torrent format on the web site. If you needed FTP for whatever reason (i.e.
> your school's firewall blocks torrent), you had to submit a request, and
> they'd email you a key to get on and download via FTP.
>
>  -dc
>
Would something like CoDeeN

http://codeen.cs.princeton.edu/

or Coral

http://www.coralcdn.org/

be viable for things like this? Or would big distributions like this
just destroy the effective bandwidth of those services, rendering them
useless for any other users?

-- 
Mark Hesseltine
mailto:markhesseltine at gmail.com