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Hey All,
I get a 404 error from the libre office download server. I've tried from two different Win XP machines and from my CentOS machine. All are running Fire Fox.
I tried to download the Win version and the linux version. Both just got me a 404 error.
Is anyone else having a problem with the downloader or is it just me?
It appears that the problem has been solved in the past 3 hours because I could download either Linux or Windows versions of LibreOffice.
--Dan
Mark LaPierre wrote:
Hey All,
I get a 404 error from the libre office download server. I've tried from two different Win XP machines and from my CentOS machine. All are running Fire Fox.
I tried to download the Win version and the linux version. Both just got me a 404 error.
Is anyone else having a problem with the downloader or is it just me?
I just tried downloading the Linux version from www.libreoffice.org. It seems OK so far. Have you tried recently? There might have been a temporary problem somewhere.
I have already updated to 4.03 yesterday, but I just tried accessing
it now and it (stopped at downloading prompt) seems fine, at least for
Linux.
just a reminder that LO can be downloaded via the bit torrent where I can see 13 seeds for the Fedora version alone.
If possible, don't put a strain on the LO servers, use the bit torrent and then seed back to allow other users to download 
Cheers
Hi
Torrenting is built-in to most Gnu&Linux systems and most have a default torrenting-client built-in.
However until you actually try it yourself it's a bit scary. It sounds like a normal download (so why not stick to that, right?) except for some weird thing where outsiders somehow have access to stuff on your machine. Doesn't that mean they can plonk what they like onto your machine? (NO.). Also it seems quite complicated because you download this tiny file and then that's it? How come the normal download is so much larger and why can't the tiny torrent just double-click to install LO!!? It's trying to open some other program! wtf! Does that mean i've been hacked already!!!?
Also people say this or that torrenting client is a nightmare and you MUST use a different one and then go off on some weird techie chat about weird esoteric stuff. This is especially worrying in Windows where you have to try to figure out which torrenting client, how to set it up, what's going on etc.
Truth is.
1. Just like i was saying about Anchor points yday you can use any of the torrenting clients to get the result you want. You can't really make a 'wrong' choice. Once you have used one for a while or tried a few you start to learn things and want certain features and are not impressed with others. That's when you start finessing down to a particular torrenting client. Before that they all work in very much the same way and achieve much the same results.
2. That little tiny file is made to tell the torrenting client exactly what to download and what to allow to be uploaded from your machine. Everything else is still blocked. It can't be used as a tunnel onto your machine to do anything other than deal with the single thing you are trying to download.
3. The other program that opens when you double-click on that tiny download is the torrenting-client. That then communicates with headquarters to ask for the download to start. HQ looks up who has parts of the download file. Your torrenting clients starts taking parts from everyone it can, grabbing more from the ones that can give it fastest (usually people that are nearest). As it goes it keeps checking that you are only getting bits that belong to the file. It's constantly doing the equivalent of Md5sum (or Sha) checking for you. Anything slightly weird gets rejected and reported to HQ.
4. When you have a few bits of the puzzle your torrenting client starts offering outsiders those parts, NOT any other random other thing on your machine. It's made specifically to deal with the file in question. If your machine was heavily infected it doesn't want to accidentally pass any of that on so it tightly focusses on just the file it's been asked to deal with. The upshot is that you start dishing out that file to anyone else that is nearby so their download starts getting faster. If new people join they will be getting parts you don't have yet and those become available to your client so your download gets faster and faster too.
Normal downloading means downloading from just 1 place. If that is in Romania and you are in the US then it's likely to be slow. If you are in New Zealand then even slower. Sometimes you get a choice of "mirrors" to download from but how do you choose? What if that mirror is having troubles today? What if it's daytime and the mirror is dealing with millions of requests?
So torrenting is faster because it automatically chooses all the fastest places to download from and spreads the load between them. If one slows down it automatically switches to using others.
Plus if you get part-way through a download and need to reboot or switch you machine off or if you close the torrenting client then the parts you already have are kept and logged in that tiny little file. When you switch on again the client checks all the parts you have to make sure they are all perfect and then resumes downloading. I know Firefox, probably Chrome, Opera and others also do something like that but torrenting is mare careful about security and about being perfect.
Generally after downloading by torrent i try to repay the system by allowing my file to be used to help others upload. Some people limit that to until 2x the file size has been uploaded from your machine. So downloaded once, uploaded twice. I generally just change the default settings to let it upload as much as it wants. But i don't have the torrenting client open very often so it's not always uploading. Sometimes i end up uploading a pitifully small amount and feel really guilty that i didn't repay enough. Others i upload the file 10 times and feel great. Once or twice i have been told that my part is no longer perfect and wont be used anymore but that's generally when the headquarters for that download has been taken down (eg Wolvix stopped developing so publicly due to Wolven's wife having a baby and suddenly Wolven didn't have so much free time to develop, openSUSE released a newer version so their ancient one got taken off)
So, if you are on Windows and need to choose a torrenting client just choose any of them, for now. Later on you can choose a different one and that will pick up on all the downloads you have going at that time. For now, until you work out what you really want from a torrenting client just go with any of them.
If you are on Gnu&Linux similarly, just stick with the default one until you know what you want. I've always been happy with the default one. In Ubuntu 12.04 that is "Transmission BitTorrent". I'm not sure if the Windows version of that one is better or worse or about the same [shrugs].
So, like LO itself you will hear a lot of FUD out there about which is best or whether it's a good thing to do or not. All i can say is i was very paranoid and wary about it at first but now i use it a lot because it's much faster and safer (also like LO).
It is just a tool though and all tools can be used for bad purposes so doubtless people use it for porn or illegal copying of hollywood movies and all the rest but it's your choice what you use it for. Just use it for the files you want. Don't let yourself get side-tracked into choosing downloads you don't want! But that's true of normal downloading too. It's just faster to go astray with torrenting because it downloads faster.
Regards from
Tom
I have always used torrents to download LO and .iso files as it provides
an easy "Set and forget" way to get them, It actually means if I have
particularly slow internet (which as tim pointed out is due to my NZ
living arrangement) I can download it in sections, say for a couple of
hours over a period of 3 days. The best clients on windows are ones that
are "lite" and although the most popular being uTorrent is not open
source I would still recommend it as it has a large user base and it has
a nice UI which is really self explanatory, As for Transmission? Love
it. Integrates uber nicely with whatever desktop environment I use
(largely due to it being a GTK app?) I've also discovered the
magnificent world of online p2p sites. I must advise here that they are
full of valuable resources , although be careful what you download via
Torrent as some countries such as mine have a copyright protection bill
or similar (in the usa I believe it's the DMCA act and the Millenium
act?) Anyway here in NZ several of my friends have been warned under our
"Skynet" programme to limit their movie downloading habits (This is
where I blushing also put out my wrists to be slapped) The government
here has a department and agreement set up with the ISPS to record and
moniter all activities that take place on the ports that Clients most
commonly use
Tom Davies wrote:
So torrenting is faster because it automatically chooses all the fastest places to download from and spreads the load between them. If one slows down it automatically switches to using others.
The problem is that many of us pay for bandwidth used or have caps.
Hi
Yes, that's a problem if you have upload caps but the download size is not really any larger this way. The torrent file is so tiny it really doesn't have much effect.
Usually caps are on download per month so greater bandwidth for shorter time doesn't usually hurt, does it?
Regard from
Tom
Hi
New Zealand is an unusual case because it has limited access to the outside world but has high quality links inside the country. At least, i think that's still the case. I think there is a University there that was quite quick to act as mirror for various OpenSource projects. I don't think they got into being a major seed for torrenting though so it might be worth trying to find if there is a direct download site at one of your Universities.
I remember a lot of people joining in protests against the NZ skynet bills so i'm sad to hear it went through anyway. People in the US seem to think that "freedom of speech" is a right that everyone on the planet is entitled to but many of us live in countries that have no such pretence. I found out about the bill through Ubuntu back at the time but too short notice to really get involved.
Apols and regard from
Tom