Linuxtracker – Moving 180 Terabytes of Linux a Year
Written by Ernesto on February 06, 2009Nearly three years ago, we mentioned Linuxtracker in a short post on BitTorrent sites that list ‘legal’ software downloads. Now, the site is celebrating its 4th anniversary, and with over 1400 torrents it is one of the best places to get your Linux fix.
In 2002, Bram Cohen announced a free, open source project aimed at people who needed a super-cheap way to share large files online. He called it BitTorrent and today, 7 years on, it is used for distributing everything from movies to TV shows, from software to music.
Among the early adopters of the BitTorrent protocol were several Linux projects, saving thousands of dollars in bandwidth costs. In 2005, Linuxtracker started to aggregate these Linux distributions, and it has been growing steadily over the years, racking up more than 130,000 unique visitors each month.
The site’s server currently tracks more than 40,000 peers and in the past 12 months it coordinated the distribution of 180 terabytes worth of Linux software. TorrentFreak caught up with Mark Angeli, the founder of the site, and we asked him what motivated him to create Linuxtracker.
“I was getting into the BitTorrent ‘movement’ downloading the shows I missed at night while at work. At this time I was also trying out new Linux distributions on a fairly regular basis and while I had decent download speeds, I wanted to find a better way to download and share Linux,” Mark told us.
“Some of the bigger distributions were beginning to use BitTorrent as a means of distribution, but the smaller ones were having a hard time. I wanted to make it easy for them, so I put up a site and a tracker,” he added.
The first Linux torrent Mark uploaded was for Slax 4.2.0. but it was only the beginning. Soon dozen of torrents followed, and with it their community of Linux enthusiasts started to expand. Mark told us that they have some exciting plans for the future, but these remain between him and the other admins of the site for now. One thing he did reveal is that they are looking to add a “lighter” version of the site for those on smaller devices like netbooks and smartphones.
One of the great advantages of the Linuxtracker community is that the seed/leech ratios are extremely good, even though the site doesn’t require users to register. The site is currently celebrating the month of February with some giveaways from their sponsors, so for all the Linux fans who haven’t discovered the site already, it’s well worth checking out.
Previously: Hackers Hit Anti-Pirates to Avenge Sub-Site Takedown
Next: The Pirate Bay Plans to Sue IFPI
18 Responses
Oh Noes! This cant be true!
Does this mean the good people at the music and film companies are lying about how torrents have no real good purpose other than to steal their content?
I’ve gotten amazing speeds whenever I’ve downloaded Linux disc images from BitTorrent, which I do whenever I download a Linux disc image. I don’t remember the last time I downloaded one from the official servers that the distros provide.
Nice, seen this site before. 180TB’s is quite a bit. Good job, keep it up!
Always the preferred method for Linux ditros, especially since I can help them out in some minor way by seeding. It’s also a good place to find custom remasters on occasion.
bram you raaaawk!
i owe the man terabytes
Linux Tracker Rules. DL speeds are great. Also great for small distros
It’s nice when people help out smaller projects :)
This is just one example of a good project…
Just started using Ubuntu, and it’s fantastic.
180 Terabytes sounds actually pretty tiny, compared to say — what.cd: with 2 million peers and about 5000 terabytes moved.
Re: Anonymous 9 Feb 06 2009.
I believe that what you see (when logged in) as the total Terabytes moved, is only (or mostly) that of the Local LinuxTracker BT-tracker torrents !
ie. Any torrent that you see with (mluti) after the name, is actually an external tracker torrent that has been posted on the LinuxTracker AND when the torrent get u/l, it gets the LinuxTracker tracker added to it. So then it becomes a multi tracker torrent.
Any transfer stats from the external tracker DOES NOT get counted by the LinuxTracker.
get it strait
bram cohen is a sell out and traitor to p2p.
HE deals with your friends the riaa and mpaa.
ALSO 6 months before his precious BT was outed i and another had created a type a bittorrent that had built in encryption already in our whitepaper ( that’s very close to pseudo coded and shows via words a almost code a flow of code )
in fact i’ll add that when you all cried for encryption and htey all did nothing i went over to sourceforge and started a project to make my software and then told utorrent and azureus, a week later they had that crappy version you can traffic shape instead a somethign that tunnels via ssh.
We remember don’t we exorcist
“180 Terabytes sounds actually pretty tiny, compared to say — what.cd: with 2 million peers and about 5000 terabytes moved.”
When you think about it though, its not. what.cd is going to have bigger numbers strictly based on the content.
I bet a lot less people are looking for linux!
So, what does LinuxTracker think of the RIAA and MPAA? Is LinuxTracker likelier to lean to side with the RIAA and MPAA or lean to side with The Pirate Bay?
“get it strait
bram cohen is a sell out and traitor to p2p.”
ROFL… what? You mean because he started the implemetation of the technology and now he wants to make content deals – whilst making all of his efforts freely available for everyone to use and modify – he is a traitor. Dude, lay off the pot…
“HE deals with your friends the riaa and mpaa.”
So I guess you should also point out that the writers here at TF are “traitors” and “sell outs” as they have been advocating that the RIAA etc. monetise P2P.
“ALSO 6 months before his precious BT was outed i and another had created a type a bittorrent that had built in encryption already in our whitepaper ( that’s very close to pseudo coded and shows via words a almost code a flow of code )
And yet, unlike him, you have jackshit to show for it. BTW, you haven’t created something if it’s “very close to pseudo code”.
“in fact i’ll add that when you all cried for encryption and htey all did nothing i went over to sourceforge and started a project to make my software and then told utorrent and azureus, a week later they had that crappy version you can traffic shape instead a somethign that tunnels via ssh.
We remember don’t we exorcist”
You sound like a jealous crybaby whose angry that someone wrote actual code that did something he thought of but did not write any code for that worked. So they have to start throwing insults around at people who are actually making software and money with their skills.
“So, what does LinuxTracker think of the RIAA and MPAA? Is LinuxTracker likelier to lean to side with the RIAA and MPAA or lean to side with The Pirate Bay?”
The site is remaining neutral.. ;) my music and movie collection on the other hand….
Whats with the “legal downloads”
Do you not mean that the creator chooses to share their work with the people?
Or shares their GPL works.
You should know better than that!!!!!!
TF
Thanks guys, I just picked up the new ubuntu version.
Lol 180Terabytes is nothing. Bit-HDTV has moved 20 PETAbytes.
You lose.
8 references to this post
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.