Transmission as default bittorrent client

Sat Feb 9 18:54:35 UTC 2008

I know I was defending Transmission, but I just had a bad experience with
it, checked on their forums, and it seems to be a fairly common thing.

I don't normally turn off my computer when I'm downloading something big,
but yesterday I was downloading a torrent which was coming rather slowly,
and decided I'd continue in the morning.  I closed transmission properly,
and shut down.  Upon reopening Transmission it had lost most of the 350mb I
had downloaded, it had only managed to preserve 20.

As I said, there are other people complaining about this on their forums.
So, while I prefer the look and feel of Transmission, I've now started using
deluge...

I agree with Remco in that it would be perfectly adequate to simply have a
dialogue prompting to install a torrent handler, as we now do with certain
audio-video codecs.  After all, if you're torrenting, you must have a net
connection.

On Feb 8, 2008 5:10 PM, A. Walton <awalton at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Feb 7, 2008 7:46 PM, Remco <remco47 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I noticed I didn't actually send this to the list... here it is.
> >
> > Remco
> >
> > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> > From: Remco <remco47 at gmail.com>
> > Date: Feb 6, 2008 3:33 AM
> > Subject: Re: Transmission as default bittorrent client
> > To: Bryan Quigley <gquigs at gmail.com>
> >
> >
> > On Feb 6, 2008 2:44 AM, Bryan Quigley <gquigs at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > My initial reaction was similar.  However, in transmissions favor
> > > Memory usage (quick test)
> > > Deluge at 23 Mb
> > > Transmission at 7 Mb
> > >
> > > The interface also seems more transitional from the previous
> integrated
> > > client.  I think one of the big factors is that deluge has a wizard to
> get
> > > you setup while transmission just works.
> >
> > It's true that Deluge has a wizard (which you can skip if you really
> > want). However, two of these settings are very important: Maximum
> > Upload Speed and Maximum Connections. If you don't set a maximum
> > upload speed, your download speed will plummet, and you'll have
> > trouble reaching websites. And many cheap routers crash when they have
> > to deal with the amount of connections bittorrent-traffic usually
> > consists of. Not setting these right will make an app Just Not Work
> > (tm).
> >
> > If there is consensus on which misfeatures really kill the chance of
> > Deluge becoming the default app, I could direct the Deluge-devs to
> > these concerns. Due to Deluge's modular architecture, anything can be
> > moved from default to plugin.
> >
> > So far, I've seen:
> > * High memory usage.
> > * High file size.
> > * Obscure features that should be a plugin.
> > * Wizard-based configuration over sane-default.
> >
> > I've run Transmission, and one thing I like is that it chooses a
> > random port, and opens it with NAT traversal. No configuration
> > required. The rest of the application is too limited for my taste.
> > With Deluge I can easily extend the features by selecting a few
> > plugins. I think file size could be reduced by actually not including
> > the plugins by default.
> >
> > I think, if the Deluge-devs would want to resolve these concerns,
> > Deluge would be a far better choice.
> > * It's more popular.
> > * It has features people need that Transmission misses.
> > * It's easily extendable.
> > * It looks like µTorrent & Azureus.
> > * It runs on Mac & Windows (helps acceptance by slow migration).
> >
> >
> > Remco
> > --
> > Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list
> > Ubuntu-devel-discuss at lists.ubuntu.com
> > Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
> >
>
> To be honest, I don't see the need to include a Bittorrent client by
> default at all; it's always going to be this kind of war: "My client's
> better and I'll tell you why". I think if Ubuntu's going to include
> one at all (and waste the CD space on it for those users who don't
> know what a torrent is, never used it before, and maybe never will),
> it should be one that's small, wasting as little space as possible,
> and extremely simple to use. Gnome-BT fit that bill, but is completely
> unmaintained. The next rung up the ladder is Transmission (and even
> the developer of Gnome-BT acknowledges this:
> http://gnome-bt.sourceforge.net/ ).
>
> Even if you disagree with the client, don't like it, don't use it, it
> doesn't matter: as soon as you install Ubuntu, you're going to choose
> your favorite client anyway. But you're not the average case here.
> BitTorrent is widely accepted amongst some circles, especially us, the
> Free Software world, as it's a great way to distribute new versions of
> our software. It's not as widely accepted outside of our world: your
> mother would probably look at you cross-eyed if you told her to
> "download the latest version of Ubuntu with BitTorrent." In the latter
> case, Transmission wins that hands down.
>
> Continuing this discussion ad nauseum may make you feel better, but I
> don't think it's likely to change much. The situation is, Ubuntu is
> for Human Beings, not just geeks and torrenters. The Deluge packages
> are in the archives, anyone who's upset about Transmission can easily
> go grab a different client, and Synaptic/apt-cache brings up a whole
> list of them to choose from. Everyone's got an opinion on this one,
> which is why it's probably best to stick with the absolute bare
> minimum (or none at all, I'm hugely in favor of saving the CD space
> for other, more important things, and letting someone double click a
> "Torrent" file and have a nice dialog pop up saying "You currently do
> not have a handler registered for file type "Torrent", would you like
> to install a program that manages these files?"). But then again it's
> probably just easier to ship Transmission, especially when that
> average human model's not going to have a clue which torrent client to
> pick out of the lineup, and in the likely case they'd actually want to
> use it, they just want to download something and get it over with.
>
> 2c.
> -A. Walton
>
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