[GRLUG] core 5 iso image?

[Tim Schmidt]

On 4/30/06, john-thomas richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
> It is my understanding of bittorrent that it adjusts your download
> speed relative to your upload speed.  The whole point of bittorrent is
> *everyone* shares the load so your download speed is relative.  This
> prevents one from downloading a large file without really contributing
> bandwidth back to others in the form of sharing the same file (or
> pieces thereof) with others at a comparable speed.  If (since) your
> upstream bandwidth (which is really just another way to say someone
> else's *downstream* bandwidth) is throttled, your downstream is being
> "throttled," too.

Actually, according to http://bittorrent.org/protocol.html the
throttling algorithm used by bittorrent is significantly more complex
than adjusting download speed according to upload speed (in fact, the
speed of the down / uploads is only throttled indirectly).  From what
I gather from that page, in order to get the best bittorrent download
rate, you only need be uploading a little bit faster than anyone else,
and hang around for a while.  And even if you're not the faster guy on
the block, you'll get picked up randomly by uploaders looking for
better connections.

I usually cap uploads at 20Kb/s, or 160kbits/s.  What can I say, I
have 384kbit up and I need room for VoIP.  On most torrent downloads
I'll push 150Kb/s or 300kb/s, but almost never the full 6 or 700kb/s I
_could_ be seeing over 6Mbit/s cable.

And as anecdotal evidence it's not too many connections, I get 5 or
600Kb/s routinely out of Gtk-Gnutella with upwards of 300 simultaneous
connections.  The BT protocol doesn't suggest even a tenth of that
level of activity.

--tim