Torrent installation

[gurumaia]

Ok, so I finished my first (successful) core installation. I then added my first MD, ripped a DVD and was able to play it on the MD. All was fine and I thought to myself: Time to install a torrent client. Should be simple, I'll do it remotely from work tomorrow.
Well, simple it wasn't (or isn't). At least for me.
Let me put forth the requirements I have:
- Can't be any torrent client, must be one of the following: rTorrent, kTorrent, Transmission or Deluge. Also, no any version, each of them have to be a specific version.
- Must be able to administer remotely (from outside my network).
- Must be able to use rss (even if it is through an external rss downloader).

So after a bit of research I decided on trying Deluge. For this specific client, I need it to be one of the following versions: 1.2.3, 1.3.2 or 1.3.3.
I saw that the version available through the repos was 0.5.something so I knew I would either have to install it manually or add newer repos.
I decided to go with the latest, 1.3.3.

I first tried installing the .deb with dpkg but it would fail on some dependencies. I saw that there were a lot of dependencies and got lazy to install them one by one.
I then tried to compile it by hand (first installing the dependencies listed on the documentation) and everything besides building libtorrent went fine (something involving boost was not working). Since this is the backend, nothing worked.
Then, after a bit of researching, I found that the jaunty repos have the 1.3.3 version. I added it to my sources.list and tried to install it to no avail, it said some dependencies could not be installed. I tried to resolve these dependencies issues and was able to resolve all of them but the last one which was Python 2.6. I had Python 2.5 installed. I searched a bit about upgrading Python on the forums and wasn't able to find anything conclusive apart from a thread with no final information. So I decided to go ahead and try it.

This is where all hell broke loose.
First thing I noticed was it wanted to uninstall a lot of packages (about 15), wanted to install a bunch of new ones and upgrade some others. I figured the time to screw up my install is now, while I don't have it running at full speed. So I decided to go ahead.
I think my main mistake was I did it through Synaptic. Remotely, via SSH with X forwarding. On a 3G connection. I don't really know what happened but at some point near the end, everything froze. My connection dropped and I think Synaptic didn't finish its process.
When I got home, I went to check it and "apt-get update" would fail saying dpkg didn't finish successfully and that I should run "dpkg --configure -a".
Running "dpkg --configure -a" also didn't finish throwing out a core dump.
LinuxMCE seemed to be running fine and I was able to stream media to the MD perfectly. I could not go into kde on the core though.
I could try to resolve this but I would never know if everything was 100% ok. And I can't afford too much time to resolve this, so I decided to reinstall my core. This is where I'm at right now. I left it reinstalling at home (I'm at work right now) and will probably finish it up tonight.

Since this is giving me so much trouble, whenever I get this right, I'll try to make a guide of sorts and post it to the wiki. Perhaps this would help others.

But I also need some help. I'm not sure if I should attempt to upgrade python once again. Has anyone ever done it successfully? Does LinuxMCE use python for anything? I'm starting to think I should attempt to install rtorrent (which seems to have less dependencies), which would be my second choice after deluge.

Thanks!

[JoakimL]

Hmm, you're in for a re-install my friend. By adding the Jaunty (9.04) repos you messed up you installation seriously. You can only use repos with the same version as Kubuntu (8.10 or 10.04). With mixed versions you'll get all dependencies going crazy...

After a re-install, I'd go the compile route, if you cannot find a repo with a back-ported or retrofitted torrent package. And do document your solution on the Wiki, that way we all improve. ;-)

/Joakim

[gurumaia]

Hmm, you're in for a re-install my friend. By adding the Jaunty (9.04) repos you messed up you installation seriously. You can only use repos with the same version as Kubuntu (8.10 or 10.04). With mixed versions you'll get all dependencies going crazy...

After a re-install, I go the compile route, if you cannot find a repo with a back-ported or retrofitted torrent package. And do document your solution on the Wiki, that way we all improve. ;-)

/Joakim

About the repos, I only added it in order to install the packages I needed and would remove them after being done with it, so I don't think I would ruin my installation so seriously. But since I messed everything up I'm doing the reinstall anyway.
btw, I don't think I've mentioned it but I'm using the 810 final version.
I've been thinking about going with 1004, but I don't have a lot of free time at home and the wiki says that it might drive me insane. Is it *that* unstable or has it developed a bit since then? I'm able to fix stuff on my own but time restrictions are what made me choose 810.

I'll definitely add it to the wiki. There is an article about using wine to run uTorrent but that's a no-go for me. I've never been able to use wine with much success and I'd like to give linux clients a try.

As for the python upgrade, was anybody ever successful in upgrading it to 2.6?

Thanks for the help!

[JoakimL]

I'm running 10.04 as my main LMCE, most things work absolutely fine. But - it's still alpha code, so anything could happen. But by doing a proper backup before doing any upgrades would take care of that. An of course your mileage will vary, I can only talk about my setup on my hardware.

/Joakim

[gurumaia]

I'm running 10.04 as my main LMCE, most things work absolutely fine. But - it's still alpha code, so anything could happen. But by doing a proper backup before doing any upgrades would take care of that. An of course your mileage will vary, I can only talk about my setup on my hardware.

/Joakim

Great. If this continues to give me headaches, I'll try 10.04. Thanks for the help.

[gurumaia]

Ok, I feel really stupid now. I just installed 1004 (because of unrelated issues I had with 810) and tried to install deluge again. And I found out that the deluge team has a ppa repository for ubuntu with the latest version available. It was as simple as
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deluge-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deluge

I don't even think this is worth a wiki page. Am I wrong?

[l3mce]

Ok, I feel really stupid now. I just installed 1004 (because of unrelated issues I had with 810) and tried to install deluge again. And I found out that the deluge team has a ppa repository for ubuntu with the latest version available. It was as simple as
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deluge-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deluge

I don't even think this is worth a wiki page. Am I wrong?

What would be worthwhile... is dredging up this thread.
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php/topic,8442.0.html

I don't use torrents and have attached myself to other projects... but SOMEONE needs to make this. Seems a very easy entry into real dev work.

[Aviator]

I'm on it, I just finished the Radio Thermostat driver I was working on.

[gurumaia]

What would be worthwhile... is dredging up this thread.
http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php/topic,8442.0.html

I don't use torrents and have attached myself to other projects... but SOMEONE needs to make this. Seems a very easy entry into real dev work.

Yeah, I remember that thread. If I get to a point where my system is stable and I have free time, I'll try to devote some effort into this.

[purps]

Didn't read all the posts, but...

rtorrent has been fantastic for me, both in 810 and 1004, I recommend you use that.

I like it because it's lightweight, I can leave it running (using "screen" command), it can be configured to automatically start/stop (so you can "scp" torrents to a specific folder wherever you happen to be, and it will start), just great all round. I can furnish you with my config file if you like.

This was handy too.... http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/05/02/howto-use-rtorrent-like-a-pro/

Cheers,
Matt.

[davegravy]

Fwiw

Transmission has been great to me. Simple install, remote torrent management apps  available for the major mobile platforms. Seems lightweight too.

[purps]

I never had any joy with the remote stuff in transmission, but apart from that yes transmission is very good.

I should have mentioned (in case it wasn't clear), that rtorrent is command line only (but still very simple and easy to use). But that makes it easy to manage remotely because it's just a case of SSHing in - no extra apps to install (although there are web-based methods I believe i.e. control it in a browser).

Cheers,
Matt.

[gurumaia]

Yeah, prior to installing 1004 I was using rtorrent. While I did like it, I'm finding that deluge is a little better. It's made from scratch as a client/server so there's no need for screen. You can access it remotely either with the gtk app or a web ui. And there are tons of cool features. The console-based interface isn't as good as rtorrent's, at least for me. But all the other pros outweigh the cons for me so far.

[pointman87]

I also run deluge daemon on my core and client on my office gentoo box and macbook and it works very good =)

[m3freak]

Fwiw

Transmission has been great to me. Simple install, remote torrent management apps  available for the major mobile platforms. Seems lightweight too.

I prefer transmission - it's also been awesome for me.  I can control it remotely from a terminal, a browser, or my phone.  Handy!!!