- Monday, 30 November 2009
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If tunes were human beings, that singer would be a serial killer
Don't buy any download accelerator
PLENTY OF users moving from Windows to Linux ask about ways to run their familiar "download accelerator" for Windows on Linux. The good news is that there is a hidden gem for Linux that does the job, is open, and of course, free of cost.
One popular application in the Windows world are download accelerators with "Download Accelerator Plus (DAP) and Internet Download Manager (IDM) among other popular choices. These applications work by opening several simultaneous requests to the same server, and fetching different segments of the file, automagically putting all the pieces together.
Making use of your full bandwidth and downloading huge files in minutes instead of hours? Priceless!
The result is that you get your file much faster - at the expense of hosing the file server with plenty of connections, so use it wisely and don't abuse it 'specially on small firm's web sites-.
Why do you get files faster with multiple connections instead of one? Well, it depends, some ISPs do bandwidth throttling on a per-TCP connection basis. Others are plagued by lag, and in some other instances it's the web or FTP server which caps each connection with a maximum bandwidth.
In any case, if you didn't know what a download accelerator is, now you know. But after the Vista fiasco, plenty of people are moving to Linux, specially since there has been a plethora of consumer-friendly distros lately, like the popular Ubuntu.
So you are on Linux and want a "download accelerator" as you miss your Windows tools for faster Pr0n, er, software updates downloading. But you want a free one, because you are a cheap bastid.
The ugly way: downloading with your browser. Here, file downloading at
about 1Mbit on a 5Mbit ADSL link.
OK, if you read up to this point here is the prize: the simplest, most effective download accelerator for Linux is dubbed "Axel". Axel was created by Wilmer van der Gaast, a native of the Netherlands now living in Dublin. And following the true internationalist spirit of any good open source project, the code is now maintained by Yasa Giridhar Appaji Nag, a coder at Netapp in Bangalore, India.
File downloaded with Axel using the full ADSL bandwidth
Axel is a tiny piece of code, just 43 Kbytes big when compiled from sources - tested on Fedora Core 6. The only drawback is that you must run it from a command line session, just like the familiar Wget - but much faster-.
Axel is specially useful for downloading monster files from web servers and ftp sites with plenty of bandwidth available, and which support multiple connections. Mirrors of OpenOffice.org on .edu domains come to mind, as well as downloading anything huge from Microsoft, Adobe, Sun, etc. DirectX redistributable files, Adobe Reader, you name it.
The syntax couldn't be simpler: you call it as follows...
axel -n X http://hostname/blah/file.zip
Where "x" is replaced with the number of simultaneous connections you want to use. The developer and this scribbler, suggest 4. People who like to push the envelope might want to try six. Don't abuse this... you can bring a given FTP or HTTP server to its knees, and deny others the chance of downloading in the process.
Four simultaneous downloads -even if of different file segments- account as four different web users from the server side. Think about download slots and you get the idea. Remember sever-side bandwidth is finite.
While there are some Firefox add-ons that claim to manage downloads or even make downloads faster, nothing is as reliable as a good old text-mode utility. Think of Axel as Wget on steroids. The latest version of Axel is 1.1 , dated April 2008. Find it here. Oh, and the geeks amongst you can also compile a version for windows using Cygwin. Recommended!.
Downloading OpenOffice in a handful of minutes instead of half an hour and saturating your 5Mbit ADSL link? Great. Doing so without having to spend a dime. Priceless!. µ
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I'm sure all those consumers fleeing Vista for Ubuntu and the like will be thrilled to have another awesome command line utility like this available. 

We all know that the command line is joe consumers favorite thing about Linux and that if only windows had as many awesome command line utilities as linux MS wouldn't be losing it's pants on Vista.
Wouldn't be an Inq article with a poke at Vista. Couldn't just say, if you're one of the handfull of people using using Linux everyday, there is a download accelerator. No, had to say "...after the vista fiasco, everyone jumping to linux...." I'd like to know who these Linux people are. I run a computer company and out of the hundreds of computers I have built, not one has ever asked for Linux. I can just see the average computer user using Linux and going to watch a Youtube video, and wait, there's no flash player installed. On my windows machine it just automatically installed. On this linux thing, I have to download something. Ok, I found where to download flash. What are different RPM's? What version do I need. Let's click on this one. Ok, it downloaded something. Where did it go. Ok, found it, I think. Lets run it. Can't, its compressed. Lets figure out how to uncompress something. Oh it won't let me. What are permissions. Whats a terminal window. Whats sudo? Until you can click YES and install something as simple as a flash player on linux, it's never to be used by anyone but a fringe group who like painful install's and overcomplicated tasks. Command line downloaders, lets get out of the 80's. Type in the name of the file you want to download on the command line. So many places don't even give dirrect links now, so you couldn't even use the command line software on a lot of downloads as many are dynamic download links. You use openoffice as an example. Did you even go and try and download openoffice with the command line tool? http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/?product=OpenOffice.org&os=linuxintelwjre&lang=en-US&version=2.4.0 Thas the link for the english rpm version of open office. It then redirrects you to an open mirror and then dynamically starts the download for you. No dirrect link for your little command line buddy to use. My free windows accelerator will be able to still download mutiple connections though as it integrates into my browser and not into the 80's. O wait, lets cancel that. I don't want openoffice. No one uses that either.
probably you would want to check on prozilla too (which is a command line tool too, though there's a gui wrapper for it but the development is not active). The last time I used axel was in December last year and at the time I think prozilla was much better. Don't know if the new Axel version has been improved a lot.
Your Machine is NOT as Limited as You Believe. When first putting IN Partition & then Updates in Microscode, first put in Windows 3.1, then HALT, TEST YOUR SPEED, It Should Be About 37.5 Mb/s. Microvole don't Like Snoops. it'll stay that way for day or until you start full update. So TOP End is FAST, yet NOT Generally Available to Mortal Person.

Downloading from 56K Server, is Always going to be Slow. Putting Accelerator into Cable system or Non compatible system may permanetly Reduce Speed Capabilities of Machine on that Partition. Never to Soar Again, So Watch Out.
Linux is good software to Test & Play around with, its made for inspired: DIAGNOSTICIAN.(Cann't You Read: TS ed. theDIAGN)Haha barf. 
Learning to find correction & implement it is FUN. Yet, its for well know systems:k7/k8 being Prime Target for curious. Sure it works above that, yet you start trading really High Quality for Entertainment Learning.
Drashek
10.8 KB/s is NOT 1Mbit. It's more like 0.08Mbit.
It is plain to see that the article has nothing to do with the title. It has to do with some lame crusade to have everyone cross over to Linux.

Linux is nowhere near being a decent desktop OS. It is nowhere near mature and of all the distros, I would say Suse will give you the least headaches. 

After reading all the articles on how bad Vista was and how great Ubuntu was, I tried it out. What a mistake. DOes not recognise my hardware RAID, but you can software RAID if you really want to (I don't, but unlike on Windows where stuff just works, on Linux you spend 2 weeks getting nowhere), so I just did a basic install onto one drive for the time being. Unfortunately, Ubuntu did not recognise most of my drives or devices and I needed a PC that was working. So I went back to XP64 on that PC and installed Ubuntu on an old PC I had lying around. 

Surprise surprise, Ubuntu wouldn't install. Some issue with the SCSI controller. Put in an old IDE disk, remove SCSI controller, install Ubuntu. Now it comes to the fun part. Trying to get any applications to install. Even with the menu where you can select the applications you want to install and having the option to only show compatable applications, most of them tell me that they are meant for a different version. What's the point in having that option if it doesn't work. Then there's trying to install and figure out how most of the stuff works. The majority of applications are so badly written, they have every setting known to man, but they all have to be set via the command line. Now I understand a command line, but not everyone does. My parents would never be able to use that. Better still, where do they go to get new software? Besides for the selection, they can't go ask a guy in a shop and get an easy to use CD with idiot proof instructions that comes with a manual they can sit with.

On top of it all, after I replaced the graphics card, I am now getting an error about failing to start the X server. It is just not user friendly or practical.

I since used Vista and found it to be so amazing. Maybe because I wasn't expecting much after all the slander it's gotten. But within 10 minutes, I had turned off the UAC and gotten to grips with the new interface. And the best thing was that everything just worked. It picked up most of my RAID controllers immediately and I could install straight onto them. Everything just works. I look at the time I spent messing around trying to get Ubuntu to work and my time is deffinately worth just buying Vista Ultimate. I wish I'd just done that in the first place.

Since then, I have upgraded and swapped my video cards and you know what, I don't get some dumb error telling me some server does't work.

And getting back to the title of the article, there are lots of free download managers for Windows too. Just try "Free Download Manager" or look around.
You can get this for Mac OS X too
http://axel.darwinports.com/
You need to search for downloader 4 X.
This is the best download program (or accelarator, if you like, but it's not limited to this), it exist for ages and is probably the best of them all, linux or windows. Has tones of features, filters, schedule, download a whole site, you name it.

here is a link, but the site is moving...
<http://www.krasu.ru/soft/chuchelo/>
If you use FireFox, why not use Downthemall? It's cross platform as a Firefox plugin, supports up to 10 connections per server, is free, and is easy to setup and use.

If you're on Windows and need something more advanced, try Free Download Manager, which works for most popular Windows browsers (IE, FireFox, Opera, etc.). It has even more features, and supports things like bandwidth allocation profiles, a dropbox, etc.
It is good, but in (Windows) 90%? of the free download managers supports splitting/multi connections.. = Same function?..

All my download managers (downloads) @ max speed, over my 10 MBits connection.
It is good, but in (Windows) 90%? of the free download managers supports splitting/multi connections.. = Same function?..

All my download managers (downloads) @ max speed, over my 10 MBits connection.
Seriously, no one heard of FlashGet?

It's free, it's a download accelerator, can resume files, handles torrent files as well, yet it would seem no one has heard of it.

I use it all the time, I couldn't imagine paying anything for something that does nothing but accelerate downloads. Especially when you can get many more features in one app for free...
FINALLY someone besides me talking about axel ;)
also if you want some good linux swaps for windows apps there is a great list here.... 
http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software
So.. 1 mbit is 10.8 kb/sec? :)

That does not look good for the 56 mbit which is now downgraded to 50 kB/ sec... 

or am i simply just wrong?
"I since used Vista and found it to be so amazing."

Amazing! hoho! Comments like these, alone in the wilderness, along with the dire quality of recent MS software products, lend support to my theory that MS have given up SW development, and have ordered the majority of their workforce to go shilling around on blog comment boxes!
Again another excuse to bash Vista. *yawn*. As if this has anything to do with the topic, but as the others have suggested, Linux is nowhere near mainstream use. And I just wonder, have any of you Vista bashes tried Vista after the drivers were fixed and SP1?

Vista sucked at launch as did previous Windowses too. But atm Vista is the best OS I've ever used. Would you believe it? Try it!
I think the majority of us who even bother to use Linux on the desktop will be capable of finding our own free download accelerator. The people who need help with free download accelerators are those still using Windows. In that respect, this article is pretty damn useless. 

No, I will not waste my time compiling it in Cygwin. It's bad enough their compilers and libraries are archaic, but it would inevitably be stuck with some terrible GUI library which makes everything look tacky.

No thanks.
It's called Downthemall, and it's a Firefox extension. Works with Windows, Mac, Linux.

Needless to say, it's free.

http://www.downthemall.net/
As pointed out, the math is completely bogus;

The tar.gz version of boost 1.35 is 28617574 bytes while the file we see in the following screenshot, at least the data transfer, amounts to 313,1 megabytes. So are these two different files being downloaded? From different servers, thus with a different path?

Lies, damn lies and statistics...

Samuel
Firefox + DownThemAll >> All

And FasterFox for faster browsing
Why startup a clumsy command line in Linux when Flashgot plugin and the free Flashget do the job for you in Windows.
About two years ago I put both Ubuntu and Win2K onto two notebooks. Ubuntu installed quickly and easily, correct screen resolution, lan and wireless both working. Windows was another matter. I had to search for video drivers to get the correct display, had to search for both lan and wireless drivers. It took ages longer to get the Win partitions working.
Vista might be working well for you, but I've read articles on how much work had to be done to get it working smoothly on an OEM computer by getting rid of all the crapware. While that's not the fault of MS, that's the install that Joe Average will be seeing on his new computer.
Get some perspective. Both a Vista and a linux installation will take some experience and skill to arrive at a completed smoothly functioning system. Which system will remain running smoothly in the hands of a casual user is another matter for debate, with the Win system vulnerable to infections and the linux system liable to have more issues with adding software.

Linux has improved and Windows is still Windows, for better and worse. The choice isn't as one sided as either set of fanboys think.
[hungry@localhost axel-1.1]$ ./configure
The strip option is enabled. This should not be a problem usually, but on some
systems it breaks stuff.

Configuration done:
Internationalization disabled.
Debugging disabled.
Binary stripping enabled.

[hungry@localhost axel-1.1]$ make install
mkdir -p /usr/local/bin/
cp axel /usr/local/bin/axel
cp: cannot stat `axel': No such file or directory
make: *** [install-bin] Error 1



Please help.............
Since nobody stepped up to the plate to provide a Windows version, an experimental win32 version of Axel has been made available here:
tinyurl dot com slash axelwin32
Try SKDownloader. It is java based.
http://www.toolsbysk.com/skdownloader/downloads/index.html