The Ferdora option

[Daniel ~]

Written by Daniel
Thursday, 31 May 2007

... With MS Vista languishing on the side lines waiting for someone to notice and possibly use it... More than a few are looking toward Fedora 7 as a possible alternative to MS insistence that we "Do it your way."

Can Fedora 7 deliver us from Linux-isms that have plagued the MS user wishing to find a workable alternative? For most spending a decade in the Linux school of consumer frustration is not an option. So is this the One? It might be, at lest for some...

Fedora 7 released
ARS Technica
By Ryan Paul | Published: May 31, 2007 - 08:02AM CT

Fedora 7, the latest version of the popular community-driven Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat, was released this morning. This is the first Fedora release to incorporate and unify both the Core and Extra platform components, thus obviating the need for the traditional inclusion of the word "Core" in the distribution's name. This is also the first release to be constructed with Fedora's new build system, which will vastly simplify development of custom versions and derivatives....

Front Page

[Gizmo]

We now have Fedora 7 available for download from AOAFiles.
You can get the 32-bit version here.
You can get the 64-bit version here.

[Daniel ~]

Gizmo, I get an error page, them a redirect back to http://files.aoaforums.com/

I recive this error with either file. I recive going direct to AOA Files.

[Gizmo]

[sigh]

It looks like we've hit an internal limit of PHP. For some reason that makes no sense to me whatsoever, PHP checks the size of the file when you call fopen(). I can't imagine why it would do so, but I'm sure it makes sense to the folks who wrote the code.

Anyway, because of this behavior, and because AOA is currently running compiled on 32-bit code, we can't send files larger than 2 GiB to anyone.

Grrr........

Because it is a limitation inherent to PHP and how it handles files, there's nothing I can do to work around it, either.

[dsio]

*hugs his 64bit Fedora 6 machine*

in any event, I would strongly suggest that we host the torrent files for it, rather than the files themselves, as BitTorrent really is the best way to handle files of this size.

Alternatively, many ISPs offer free traffic to and from their FTP servers, which could save you some data traffic cost, and provide best speed possible.

[Samuknow]

I will have to give this a go.

[robbie]

I'll try it as well.

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Because it is a limitation inherent to PHP and how it handles files, there's nothing I can do to work around it, either.

This isn't /quite/ true, but Gizmo and I are working on a solution to this issue...

When's Fedora 8 out? 5-6 months time if it goes according to plan?

[Daniel ~]

Are we shooting for Fedora 8? I have to admire men capable of the Loooong view.":O}

[Daniel ~]

Bit Torrent, I may be the only one on the planet, but I could use a FP article on what it is, how to use it. Any dangers connected to it. As we may be using this to handle files here (biggies) perhaps someone would do a write up on Bit torrent for us, perhaps as an intro to our Fedora download?

[ccperf721p]

I could use an education on Bittorrents myself. I spent a lot of time securing my rig so the idea of opening it up to share files isn't one I'm too keen on.

I gave Fedora 6 a run awhile back, I still prefer Ubuntu for a ready made Linux Distro. My software needs are so limited (also due to not being that software oriented) that I am able to use Gentoo from a stage1 install. Gentoo has taught me alot about linux and software in general, yet I'm still a few years away from actually being competent with Linux. I still have to say that Gentoo's portage system is about the easiest I have used for updating a system.

[Daniel ~]

yet I'm still a few years away from actually being competent with Linux.

After 8 years in forums I only know around 6 people that can say anything else! Lot's of us play with it, not to many can work with it....as a desktop,... our servers are Linux of course! ":O}

[Gizmo]

Ok, I think I've gotten the code squared away so that the downloads will work for files larger than 2 GiB. The above links should work once again.

[dsio]

You could have a quick look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent

The big thing about bittorrent is that it removes the need for extremely high bandwidth, high resource servers for high volume distribution, large files.

Given the size of the linux DVD ISOs, and how many people in the world download them, hosting them would be unbelievably cash intensive, which is a major issue for community run, free software.

To put it simply, bittorrent is a filesharing system, that shares the file in parts. The traditional Napster type music/movie filesharing system operates by one person downloading a file, and once the file is completely downloaded, it is then shared to others.

What Bittorrent does, is break the file down into pieces, usually around 500-1000kb, that can each be downloaded, checked for integrity, and then shared.

So if you have 4 pieces of a 1400 piece file.. say only 2MB of a 700MB ISO, you can already be sharing those four pieces with as many people in the torrent that need it. By this method, you are sharing the file, from when your download reaches say.. 1%, rather than waiting for it to reach 100%.

The integrity checking is also an important factor, as it prevents accidental (or intentional) corruption of data in the torrent.

Contrary to the crap the MPAA etc wish to publish, Bittorrent is not illegal, is not a piracy medium, and is not the work of the devil. Its just a very smart peer to peer protocol.

By the way, World of Warcraft uses Bittorrent as its patch downloader. This is because there are millions of users, each downloading patches that are between 50MB and 1400MB, all at once, and theres no other way to handle it.

[Daniel ~]

Thank you dsio! I at lest get the general idea, way ahead of where I was!

[Daniel ~]

Originally Posted by gizmo

We now have Fedora 7 available for download from AOAFiles.
You can get the 32-bit version here.
You can get the 64-bit version here.

Many thanks to Gizmo and Aidan! We now have 2gigs + support, downloading @ 669 KBs as I type!

[ccperf721p]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

After 8 years in forums I only know around 6 people that can say anything else! Lot's of us play with it, not to many can work with it....as a desktop,... our servers are Linux of course! ":O}

I only know one person that is proficient with Linux and he is at a level where it frustrates him to try to explain things to a noob like me. I help him with his ventures in overclocking and extreme cooling so it comes out even. I sent him invite to the site so he can bring some of his knowledge to a much better crowd than where were hanging out before.


Many thanks for the links dsio. What is the best (should read easiest) torrent client. I always have a couple of rigs running 24/7 so I could seed some files.

[danrok]

These links are working now!

Originally Posted by gizmo

We now have Fedora 7 available for download from AOAFiles.
You can get the 32-bit version here.
You can get the 64-bit version here.

[Samuknow]

Originally Posted by ccperf721p

I only know one person that is proficient with Linux and he is at a level where it frustrates him to try to explain things to a noob like me. I help him with his ventures in overclocking and extreme cooling so it comes out even. I sent him invite to the site so he can bring some of his knowledge to a much better crowd than where were hanging out before.


Many thanks for the links dsio. What is the best (should read easiest) torrent client. I always have a couple of rigs running 24/7 so I could seed some files.

That will be great to get a little insight.

We should all be running our rigs 24/7 now shouldn't we as they should all be folding....

[robbie]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

Many thanks to Gizmo and Aidan! We now have 2gigs + support, downloading @ 669 KBs as I type!

I hate you and your fast internet speed.... (ok mostly your fast internet speed!! )