[Mageia-dev] Proposal for Mageia: implement bitorrent protocol to allow updates download

[andre999]

Olivier Thauvin a écrit :
> * Marcello Anni (marcello.anni at alice.it) wrote:
>>> Thanks Olivier, for saying this much better than I could
>>>
>>> wobo, yet another mirror maintainer
>>>
>> yes wobo, but  except Per Øyvind no one has really answered to my question...
>> i think if that if we want Mageia to become the most popular distro over the
>> world -yep!- we should find a way to augment the overall bandwith available for
>> updates download, and what's better than bittorrent protocol to use user
>> available bandwith to do this? i would like to know:
>>
>> - if it is possible from a techincal pov
>> - if it is convenient and useful (overall in a long-term vision)
>> - if we could plan it for the coming releases (and who could take in charge
>> this)
>
> I can quickly answer to this:
> - bittorent is denied where distrib-coffee is hosted.
>
> This close every discuss on this side.
>
> But I can probably setup a bittorent server elsewhere (it is nice to
> work with two different university). But first I have to ask to network
> administrator.
>
>  From my own experience, I never saw bittorent so efficient for
> downloading, except it reduce the bandwidth for the team making the iso
> available (and this is still not sure).

I agree (for what it's worth).
Technically, it is possible, and a number of applications such as aria2c 
can use bittorrent.
However the only time something like bittorrent is significantly 
beneficial is when a large number of users with high uploading bandwidth 
download the same large files (such as ISOs) at about the same time. 
Which is only likely to occur shortly after a new release.  When in 
addition to reducing bandwidth load on participating mirrors, makes 
downloads for such users faster.  (I would say largely due to reduced 
traffic on the mirrors.)
At other times, it tends to just add a bit of bandwidth usage to such 
mirrors.
Still, it could be useful to have a few such mirrors, especially later 
on when Mageia is more established,  At least around release time.

> BTW: It's time to find mirrors for the distribution ! Any volunteer ?
> http://mirrors.mageia.org/

I'll contact some local mirrors to see if they will.  (Mandriva had one, 
up to 2009.)

> Regards.
>
>>
>>
>> cheers,
>> Marcello

regards
-- 
André