So you’re patiently waiting for the last and final update to Hardy before you download and upgrade? Please allow me to make a small suggestion, and you can beat the downloading rush.
First, grab the RC now. You should get good download speeds, since it’s been out for a few days and most people are twitching for the final, not the RC. Get the full alternate version that you need for your architecture, and keep it as an ISO. Don’t bother burning it, since really, in two more days, that CD will be a coaster.
Next, you can wait until the final release is announced, or you can upgrade now, as you prefer. There are going to be some package updates between now and then (I had about 15Mb after an RC install this morning), but you’ve got the majority of the stuff on that ISO you downloaded.
When you’re ready to make the jump, back up all your precious files and things, and then try that “slingshot” upgrade with the ISO that I described a long time ago. When you’re done with that you can sync with the repositories on Thursday (or now, as I just did), and your bandwidth will only be for the packages that were updated between the RC and now.
Got that? Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t download and seed the final edition. Some people are already predicting this will be the biggest torrent frenzy in Internet history, although I don’t know how that would be measured, or who could possibly decide if it was. I can tell you that several university servers in the U.S. just showed “far too busy” messages during the Feisty release — and that was a year ago, and not an LTS release. So I don’t want to stir the pot (yes I do), but this could be really big. Expect it to be almost all torrent traffic too.
For my own part, my torrent access is blocked by my router, so I’m afraid I’m out of the game, even if I’m with you in spirit. Viva la revolucion!
Kmandla, have you tried port forwarding or anything on your router? And if you cant manage to get any of that working, just turning on encryption in rtorrent should allow you to connect with others who are also using encryption, which should be everyone.
Thanks for the tip!
Justin: I’ve messed with the port forwarding and the firewall, from what I can decipher (everything is in kanji, so it’s a little intimidating and very time-consuming to decode). It also screens out some protocols too, like rsync and a couple others. I don’t know if it’s an issue of the settings or if the ISP just doesn’t want me playing Web host on a residential line.
It’s okay, I’ve found ways to get the things I truly need. And torrent traffic isn’t that big a deal to me. I’ve learned to live without it, or to do my legitimate torrent downloading at the office.