Easier ISO downloads for users

[Anthony Bryan]

Hi,

I've been working on Metalink which could be useful for Ubuntu and ISO
downloads. People are already using it to download Ubuntu ISOs.

Metalinks collect information about files in an XML format used by
programs that download. The information includes mirror lists, ways to
retrieve the file on P2P networks, checksums for verifying and
correcting downloads, operating system, language, and other details.
With a list of multiple ways to download a file, programs can switch
to another server if one goes down. Or a file can be downloaded from
many mirrors at once, usually making the download go much faster.
Downloads can be repaired during transfer for guaranteed downloads
with no errors. Geographically closer mirrors can be used before
others further away. Downloads can be filtered by a file's operating
system or language. They can also be used to add multiple files to a
transfer queue. All this makes things automatic which are usually not
possible or at least difficult, and increases efficiency,
availability, and reliability over regular download links.

About 15 programs support Metalink on Mac, Unix, and Windows. aria2 is
a command line version available in feisty ('apt-get install aria2')
if you'd like to try it out. openSUSE (
http://en.opensuse.org/Released_Version#Metalink ), OpenOffice.org (
http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/magnet.html ), and other
distributions use it for ISO downloads.

Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu .metalinks are available at
http://download.packages.ro/metalink/

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalink
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/01/1641247
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/using_metalinks
http://www.osresources.com/3_18_en.html

If anyone has any suggestions on how Metalinks could better serve the
Ubuntu community, please let me know.

-- 
(( Anthony Bryan
  )) Metalink [ http://www.metalinker.org ]