Making Space

Day 6
I need a copy of the 1983 movie The Outsiders to show to my students. I'm almost positive there's a copy of it in the building somewhere, but just in case, I'd like to download a backup copy in the event that my colleagues fall through on delivering the goods. But how do I download on a computer that only has about 1GB of available space?

First, I started with what I know - Ubuntu Hardy comes with torrent downloading software Transmission. I've already added a few repositories to Synaptic, so I take my chances and search for Transmission. Luck is on my side and it shows up. I mark it for installation and apply changes. All appears well, but the Transmission icon fails to show itself in any of the menus, and it does not load using sudo transmission in the console. If it did install correctly, I'll never know.

Next step - I google torrents for the Eee and find that ktorrent is the most popular. I follow a simple tutorial and it downloads no problem. Looks and acts similar to Transmission, so I'm feeling good. Now to deal with the space restrictions.

I go to "Configure Ktorrent" in the settings menu and change the downloading path to an external 8GB flash drive. Easy fix.

After a quick search on Pirate Bay, I'm all set.


Installing Ktorrent only took a few minutes and changing the download path is an easy hack to combat the Eee's space restrictions.