Downloading Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty on Windows XP using BitTorrent

Hi,

It is long long time since I posted on this blog because I was not having regular access to Internet. I reached my daughter's home and she has a desktop with 24 hours cable internet connection. Although it has Xubuntu 6.06 in dual boot with Windows XP the Linux is not in use due to 128MB not being sufficient for adequate speed on Xubuntu. Moreover, the desktop is used by all family members so the default OS is Windows XP.

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty was released on April 19th 2007 and I wanted to download it ASAP. I decided to have the experience of downloading through BitTorrent. There are many sites offering Bittorrent clients for Windows. I decided to download the original Bittorrent client. In order to use Bittorent you need the link to the torrent file of the iso which is a small file (27 K).

I had to modify the Windows XP firewall settings for the Network Connection to allow access to port nos 6881 to 6889 for which instructions were available on this site.

I entered the URL of the torrent file in BitTorrent by clicking on Add button. I was asked where to save the downloaded ISO on the hard disc and the download began. Since it was day 1 there were more people asking for the file than those sharing theirs (called seeds). My max download speed was limited by the ISP (could reach 12 KB/s only). In spite of such low download speed the PC was uploading at 3 KB/s and surfing was not possible. After trying for a few hours I decided to pause the download for one or two days. On April 20th I found that 98% machines were seed and it was possible to download and also surf on the desktop. It took more than a day to download the ISO.

kagashe