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Find Linux Torrents Quickly 181

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-it's-for dept.
torrentnerd writes "If you're on the hunt for Linux ISO Torrents you might want to check out the long list of recently released distro torrents over at LinuxISOtorrent.com. They've got frequently updated torrents from A (Arch) to Z (Zen). The site only does one thing, but does it well - helps you get the latest Linux distros downloaded via BitTorrent, quickly."
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Find Linux Torrents Quickly More

Find Linux Torrents Quickly

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  • It would be nice to see how they get thier update informaton. Distrowatch has the same information, but this site appears to be focused strictly on providing links to torrents.

    Does this site represent all of the distros available, or just those most used? (with stats drawn from where?)

  • Why can't it automatically remove? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eunuch ( 844280 ) * on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:03PM (#12677858)
    I see a link to report dead torrents. Why not automatically check for dead links occasionally?

    I suppose they can be given some leniency, but if it's down for a whole week, it shouldn't require human intervention to drop from the page.
    • It's a bit more complex than a 404 to detect a dead torrent. The torrent file can exist but if no one is seeding it, then it is effectively dead - no one can download the entire file. There are scripts out there that check that, but usually iirc they are local to the tracker. I'm not sure if the tracker broadcasts this data or not.
      • But the 404 is the least you can do. Same thing with the links to the webpage.
      • And this is why you should use Gnutella instead. Simply search by name, SHA1 or extension and download what you need.

        I've never had to check to see how many people are seeding something, and within 1-3 seconds of kicking off a download, I've usually discovered 2-500 other people who are actively downloading and sharing the result.

        Want a searchable BitTorrent? It's spelled Gnutella.
        • Yeah. Because Gnutella offers downloads that scale well when new distros are released. It allows people who don't have complete copies of a high-demand file can contribute to the swarm. Searches are really fast, too, because you can immediately hop on the network and find most anything you need immediately. Also, it's network topology doesn't splinter users, in centralizes them based on what files they demand.

          Oh wait...

          Not to bash Gnutella, but there is a very good reason it is not used for large d

  • It's not just Linux. (Score:5, Informative)

    by truedfx ( 802492 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:03PM (#12677861)
    Also some of the *BSDs.

  • Legality? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ROBOKATZ ( 211768 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:05PM (#12677870)
    Is this legal? Can't the MPAA sue you if you use BitTorrent, even if it is just to download Linux?
    • Can't the MPAA sue you if you use BitTorrent, even if it is just to download Linux?
      What exactly would they sue you for? If you're just downloading (and uploading) Linux, you're not infringing any copyrights belonging to MPAA members.
    • No, not in the slightest. This line of logical reasoning would allow people to be arrested for using the phone network on the grounds that crimes have been planned via phone in the past... *Rolls eyes*

    • Re:Legality? (Score:5, Funny)

      by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:11PM (#12677921) Homepage
      Obviously, if you're using BitTorrent, you're a terrorist, and if you're downloading Linux, you're a communist, too.
      • Ouch. Communist terrorists. I wonder how long it will take the current US government to make BitTorrent illegal.

        Seriously, once we have won the MGM v. Grokster [eff.org] case in the US Supreme Court, I am sure that arguments about both communists and terrorists using p2p are going to be used in an attempt to pass laws banning p2p.

    • Re:Legality? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by HermanAB ( 661181 )
      The RIAA/MPAA probably won't be that stupid, but they can sue you for downloading Linux with a torrent. You cannot prevent people from sueing you, but that doesn't mean that they have a case or will win in court. Most likely, a Judge will throw such a case out and refuse to waste his time on it.
    • Can't the MPAA sue you if you use BitTorrent, even if it is just to download Linux?

      This becomes a problem only if you have stash of illegal files on your hard drive. The MPPA can argue that BitTorrent + Illegal Files = Guilty As Hell. If you are only downloading Linux Files and everything else on your hard drive is legal, then the MPAA can't prove anything.

      • Re:Legality? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Barsema ( 106323 )
        Or even Bittorrent and PGP .... [slashdot.org]

  • Nice clean layout but.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:05PM (#12677874)
    live tracker stats would be an obvious plus...

  • torrents come and go (Score:2, Interesting)

    by downsize ( 551098 ) *
    I have over 20GB of linux distros/kernels in my online file storage [shinyfeet.com]. I have hit many of the torrents over the past couple months stocking up. I can't stand trying to find a mirror that is fast enough, so storing them, as I do, works out perfectly.

    this article's http://www.linuxisotorrent.com/ [linuxisotorrent.com] site will be sweet to find some of the stuff I've been having trouble locating (I hope). so far it looks very cool

    • Re:torrents come and go (Score:5, Informative)

      by lonb ( 716586 ) * on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:42PM (#12678084) Homepage
      dude, you forgot the '?' in the URL and you are losing valuable free ad days. YOUR correct URL would be:
      http://www.shinyfeet.com/?afd=91 [shinyfeet.com]

      ain't I a nice guy?
  • I have an old pII 233mhz with 64 megs of ram. All I want to do with is browse the web and check email, so I'm wondering, what flavour of linux would work best for that? I don't want anything bloated either :)
    • Try Gentoo.

      *giggles inside*
      • lol. Ten years later.... "for the love of god its finished installing!!"
      • I actually do run Gentoo on an old machine. In my case it's an 8 year old 160MHz PowerPC 603ev with 96MB of RAM. It took a little while to get going, but it wasn't too bad. Stage 3 install, and it built Apache, PHP, and MySQL in under 24 hours. I run it as a server, so it doesn't have X on it, which saved some time. There's always the GRP from which you can install binary packages.
      • Uninformed stereotype. Gentoo was perfect for my PII 400mhz...up and running with X and firefox under 24 hours. I get to choose what to install and what to leave out....instead of start with what the distro installs and cull the bloat.

        Maybe you giggle because you assume a Linux newbie can't read a manual.....
        • I'm just a little fuzzy on the advantage gained by compiling it yourself instead of just installing it. I mean, what advantage did you get by those 24 hours of compilation. Pulling down a debian install (or some other distribution) does the same damned thing, without actually compiling it yourself. And debian will install-on-demand with dependencies, as will (I'm sure) any other modern distribution. What's your point?

          Gentoo just seems... silly [funroll-loops.org] to me, for most applications.

          --grendel drago
          • Gentoo's not really about the compiling...most people point to that as its main difference. What sets gentoo apart is the USE flags and Portage. You can compile programs with the features you want, and say leave out GNOME or KDE support. I run a Flux desktop with minimal Gnome or Kde crap in there....I've got Kde-base installed so I can run the few kde apps I need. But I don't have anything in there I didnt specifically choose to install. If I want a certain package and it brings in too many dependencies, I

          • I haven't used Gentoo but I can understand their point of view.

            It's the computer doing the compilation, not them, so that doesn't cost them much. Particularly if they have more than one computer.

            And if they compile it themselves they have more control, it gives them a warm fuzzy feeling. It's also a good vehicle to learn and experiment. So why not?

            ---

            zealotry [reference.com] n : excessive intolerance of opposing views. [microsoft.com]

    • Re:While on the topic of Linux... (Score:4, Informative)

      by geomon ( 78680 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:17PM (#12677949) Homepage Journal
      Any version of Linux will work, but you have to be careful not to load up on services, libraries, and select a light-weight window manager. IceWM and FVWM would be good choices.
    • I just got the same type of machine as well (P2 233mhz, although I added 256 ram to it :P).

      Abiword, trillian, winamp, firefox, avg, all work well on it, but it's using Windows ME. :(
      • Hey, try Windows 2000. Much more stable than ME and uses memory so much better. Add another hard drive and use "Dynamic Disks" to stripe the Swap (and catalog (indexing service) and temp folders...) across drives and you'll have a flying machine.
        • I suppose I have memory for Windows 2000. Then again it'd be more fun to try linux. Who knows, if I can get it working nicely then I could move other family members to linux, as opposed to pirating software all the time (i.e. windows).
    • Why not try a LiveCD? Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.

    • No Bloat - FreeBSD (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )
      It will also be happier with the 64mb you have...

      Most any current mainstream linux distro will choke on you. Which is sad.

      FreeBSD is a lot less resource hungry, and you will be happier with its performance, and manageability.

      Oh, wait, i didnt support 'linux', i guess that means ill get modded down. oh well..
    • OS/2 Warp.

      for serious.

    • DSL (damn small linux) was designed for you !
      http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ [damnsmalllinux.org]
    • Ouch :) In addition to Damn Small Linux, you might also want to try Vector Linux, Feather Linux and Puppy Linux. Any or all should do but hey, at a 50-100MB download, why try just the one? :)

    • You could try DeLi Linux:

      http://www.delilinux.de/ [delilinux.de]

      Your machine is very high-end for that distro. Once you've got the basic system running with the IceWM window manager, you can download and install Firefox which should run OK. DeLi Linux is based on Slackware 7.1 and runs briskly even on hardware much slower than yours.

      Another option is to go with Debian stable (Woody). Like DeLi Linux, it has the old 2.2 kernel by default. The main browser in there however is Netscape 4.77 Communicator - which can

    • I've had success with VectorLinux [vectorlinux.com]. Based on Slackware, it was designed to run a GUI on older machines.

      It comes in two flavors - a stripped-down, basic version that works well for web-browsing and email; and the SOHO version which still runs well on older machines, but comes with a full complement of productivity software.

      It appears that only the SOHO version is available on the Linux ISO torrent site. The basic version is available at the VectorLinux site itself.
  • It's nice to have a kernel.org (sort of) equivalent for distributions.

  • Is this off-topic? So many flavors? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:13PM (#12677932)
    I'm a Windows user and went briefly to Fedora Core 3. I had problems when I upgraded my computer and couldn't get FC3 running again, even after a full recompile.

    I was asking questions on www.linuxquestions.org, but nobody could help me even though I posted all of the error messages and problems, so they recommend I try another version of Linux.

    This site illustrates one of the problems with Linux that most regular users would have. How do you pick one of these? How do you compare them all and say "That one has the features I need". It looks like there is at least 50+ different distros. Do you have to click on each little site info graphic just to learn about them? It is just too confusing to know which one to use, and I'm a computer programmer with a decent amount of computer skills. I'd hate to see what poor Aunt Mable or Grandma would think if they saw that list.

    And not that anyone is interested, but I finally bit the bullet and bought an OEM version of XP SP2 to save money on the Microsoft tax (I was Win 98 before switching to FC3).
    • Agreed. At the very least, this needs a small description of each distro, like you find at Linux.org [linux.org]. Primary language, purpose (firewall, general, app development, etc). This appears to be a good BT place to get what you already know about.
    • You go for one you know can give you the support you need. Other than that, go for a big one unless you have a reason to go for a particular other one. Many of the distros are just someone making their own LFS system and then deciding to release it.

      Fedora is just red hat's public beta and gives you all the disadvantages of redhat with none of its advantages: namely, you have a heavily modified system, but none of the big support structure. If you try suse or mandrake or basically anything non-redhat I think

    • Part of the attractiveness of Linux is that you are not locked in to one particular vendor's way of doing things. This is also part of the problem for new users as the number of choices, while advantageous for the novice or expert, is absolutely daunting for the beginner. linuxquestions.org [linuxquestions.org] has a forums section dedicated to distribution reviews created by users. These can give you insight into what distributions might suit your preferences.
    • I'd hate to see what poor Aunt Mable or Grandma would think if they saw that list.

      Actually, Aunt Mable is reasonably well off. Her retirement pension from being a school teacher for 23 years is rather generous, and besides, she sells drugs on the side. As for Grandma, she's dead, rest her soul. You haven't heard?

  • A (Arch) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by soloport ( 312487 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:19PM (#12677961) Homepage
    Arch Linux [archlinux.org] is a breath of fresh air [archlinux.org].

  • Find Linus Torvalds Quickly? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Note to self: slow down a tad when reading slashdot headlines.
  • Anyone know if this is being released to stable today?

    The timeline set May 3 gives today as a release and I don't know of any changes, but there's nothing up there about the new release.

  • Damned Pirates (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:31PM (#12678017) Homepage Journal
    Only pirates trading in 'copyright infringing materials' use bittorrent.

    Thats what my friends at the *aa's told my child in school last week anyway... And something about a 'reward program' of some sort.
    • So sit your kid down and show him 1) BT has legit uses and 2) there are alternatives to MSWin.

      Two birds with one stone, no less. ;)

      • Microsoft Windows... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by nurb432 ( 527695 )
        Isn't allowed in my house, so he already knows there are alternatives.

        Well, actually i take that back, i do have an original unopened box of 'microsoft windows environment 1.0' on the shelf with my other retro software collection.. But that is different ..
        • i do have an original unopened box of 'microsoft windows environment 1.0' on the shelf

          You're not missing anything. If anyone ever claims that MS got where it is through hard work and products people wanted, show them Windows v1 to 3. NOBODY would have bought that crap if it hadn't been pre-installed.

          TWW

          • While i agree totally it was garbage, i honestly dont remember v1 being pre-installed anywhere, and this is a *retail* box. Complete with 'export restriction' tag..

            Back when it was new, we were installing OS/2 instead..

            Its just in my collection for the sake of history, sitting aside other classics such as 'dejaview' , 'concurrent dos', 'desqview', 'symphony'.....
            • i honestly dont remember v1 being pre-installed anywhere...

              Lucky. I'm still in counseling.

              Actually, it was fun, in a sick sad way. It was 1987, I was airman in the US Air Force, using a Zenith Z248 (80286 processor and a WHOLE MEG OF RAM! W00T!). We didn't even realize it had "Windows" until we started pokin' around in DOS.

              Great fun... start up 10 different copies of "clock". Windows would actually begin to lose time trying to keep the second hand on 10 different "analog clock" displays updated. Within

    • I'm curious --

      Did the school give you any kind of notice that they were bringing in corporate representatives to brainwash your children?

      Did you have any choice in the matter?

      One day my kids will be in school, and I'd like to have a checklist to go over with the teachers from time to time...

      -- John.

  • Kudos to the Slashdot editors... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Will2k_is_here ( 675262 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:33PM (#12678028)
    for providing free advertising.
    I thought the story sounded like an advertisement:

    whois linuxisotorrent.com ...
    Updated Date: 27-may-2005
    Creation Date: 27-may-2005
    Expiration Date: 27-may-2006 ...
    As if these things aren't hard enough to find anyway. To the story submitter: I know your new site applies and is a good idea, but don't hijack Slashdot's power for your own gain.
    • the site is not exploiting hijacking /. power for his own gain...

      i can't find even a small banner on their home page...

      they are just offering an useful service to the community... sure those thing aren't hard to find but i would have to browse the distro home page following 3-4 links and wasting, let's say, a minute...

      now i can download a distro torrent with just a click!
      • Right, but the point is that it was submitted as news of a site happening to exist. It was not presented to slashdot as a situation where one wishes to promote their new website. The website does have banner advertising, which companies pay for.... so submitting it as a story basically is trying to subvert paying for an advert.... which is unprofessional and is breaking the rules.

        Either that or it was submitted by a person who just found it... and that seems more likely. The editorial system here usuall
        • Either that or it was submitted by a person who just found it... and that seems more likely. The editorial system here usually catches that sort of thing.

          No, that seems unlikely. The submitter uses linuxisotorrent.org as contact instead of the email address. More likely, the user built the site, registered it, and used slashdot to advertise it to the public (and there are adverts on the page). I had a site the slashdot crowd would be interested but I didn't submit it to slashdot because I knew it would be
        • Gee, the site just seems like a pretty useful reference, kind of like a less cluttered, Torrent-oriented linuxiso.org.

          Of course, thanks to good old PithHelmet I wouldn't have seen any banners anyhow...
    • Right now the site looks more like a handy resource than one for generating revenue. There's only one text ad on the front page, and all the links go direct to the torrents. That the submitter owns the site however, is a little suspect. Probably not good form to self-promote in this manner, but they could have always submitted as an AC.
    • Slackware [google.com]
      gentoo [google.com]
      debian [google.com]
      mandrake [google.com]

      Just use a simple filetype:torrent "search string including distro name, platform compatabily(where applicable), and version information(if needed)"

      Google ranks the most popular site's torrents first, so you should get the fastest downloads with the top most results... If you want information about distros you're better off going to distrowatch, or some other site that specilizes in provding information about distros...

      Google isn't going out of buisness, even if the s
  • this is good, all good...

  • The Linux Mirror Project (Score:3, Informative)

    by goldenratiophi ( 878655 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @03:44PM (#12678094)
    http://www.tlm-project.org/ [tlm-project.org] They have the latest Linux torrents, but also some more old ones. It also has a message board.

    • Too many distro?!? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by giacomo-b ( 249521 )
      It's quite a pity to see all these distros... the opensource communit is wasting a lot of efforts on reinventing one hundred times the same things...

      I know that this will never happen but why not focus on a "server distro", on a "desktop distro" and on a "minimalistic distro" rather than developing hundreds of clones of themselves?!?

      • Re:Too many distro?!? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by poofyhairguy82 ( 635386 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:20PM (#12678625) Journal
        I know that this will never happen but why not focus on a "server distro", on a "desktop distro" and on a "minimalistic distro" rather than developing hundreds of clones of themselves?!?

        This always gets modded insightful, but the truth is that the posts lacks a careful insight. The reason why Linux won't unify is because their is many more different needs for OSes beyond "server" and "desktop." Embedded systems need an OS, firewalls need an OS, low end desktops need an OS, high end desktops and workstations need an OS, web servers need an OS, servers needed for specific venders software needs an OS, Joe Users needs an OS if it helps his ego. For each of these uses for an OS (and more) there is a least one Linux based OS serving the need.

        The closest thing the Windows world has for many of these things is older versions of the OSes. Linux is just a kernel used in many more ways than I can imagine. Each distro is its own OS (based on Linux) and so the problem is that there might be too many OSes since Linux came around. And that might be true if you fear choice....

        • For each of these uses for an OS (and more) there is a least one Linux based OS serving the need.

          Your parent poster's point. Why can't we get a single distro for Joe User, a single distro for techie workstation (though yes, we'll get three: Gnome, KDE, Other) rather than having to pick between a handful of Gnome-based desktop distros, a handful of KDE-based desktop distros....

          Choice is one thing, but with all the people available working towards one thing, you free up a lot of duplicated maintenance/i

      • well, not just opensource,let's have a look at all the actual (= supported) Microsoft OS

        - Windows Millenium Edition
        - Windows 2000 Professional
        - Windows 2000 Server
        - Windows 2000 Advanced Server
        - Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
        - Small Business Server 2000
        - Windows XP Home
        - Windows XP Starter
        - Windows XP N
        - Windows XP Pro
        - Windows XP Pro x86-64
        - Windows XP Media Center
        - Windows XP Tablet PC
        - Windows XP Embedded
        - Windows NT 4.0 Embedded
        - Windows CE 3.0
        - Windows CE .NET 4.x
        - Windows CE 5.0
        - Windows Mobile
        - Wind

  • Oh, the irony (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jicksta ( 760596 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:03PM (#12678188) Homepage
    Did anyone else notice that the homepage uses Windows XP's Internet Explorer home button icon between the distro's name and its respective website?

    From site: http://www.linuxisotorrent.com/images/home.gif [linuxisotorrent.com]
    IE screenshot: http://searchy.protecus.de/en/address_bar_search.g if [protecus.de]

    Apparently LinuxISOtorrent.com doesn't share the same philosophies which propels the software it indirectly hosts.

    I wonder how much money they've made off this slashdotting from advertising? Pffft.
    • Apparently LinuxISOtorrent.com doesn't share the same philosophies which propels the software it indirectly hosts.

      So you're determining the web site's philosophies from an icon they use?

      Take a chill pill dude.

  • Something nobody seems to have pointed out yet... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iantri ( 687643 ) <iantri&gmx,net> on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:20PM (#12678293) Homepage
    ... is that this is an *EXCELLENT* example of what BitTorrent is for; that is to say, not for distributing pirates movies/games/music, but for reducing bandwidth load on servers.

    Next time the media does a story on the "illegal file-trading site BitTorrent", you can point to this and say, "See? It really has little to do with that at all.."

  • Torrents are evil. What about the copyright holders? Clearly Linux developers, musicians, filmmakers and little penguins are being starved to death by wanton, shameless downloading of distro ISOs off of bittorrents. Western civilization will fall, the Communist scourge will return, and our women will find themselves being prostituted out. Our children won't have quality entertainment like Britney Spears and Metallica.

  • Leeching from The Linux Mirror Project (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phoebe ( 196531 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:01PM (#12678525)
    None of the torrent files are actually hosted on linuxisotorrent.com, and more importantly most are from "The Linux Mirror Project" which performs exactly the same purpose - torrents for Linux distributions.

    A concern is that there is no credit to "The Linux Mirror Project" for any of their work in providing the torrents, its only a couple of static files on a webserver and a revenue stream from the google adverts on the side.

  • Obvious question... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cheerio Boy ( 82178 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:11PM (#12678577) Homepage Journal
    What happens to this site when people start hiding complete movies in 5gig "ISO" torrents.

    For instance a complete install of SUSE in DVD form is several gig in size. What's to stop someone from hiding a movie renamed as that?
    • What happens is people who waited three days for a Suse disc go hunt down the loser who kept them from getting the sweetest Linux distro around. Most of these folks are people who'd much play around on a new OS than watch Gigli.

  • The Linux Mirrror Project deserves a mention too (Score:3, Informative)

    by MCRocker ( 461060 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @05:53PM (#12678806) Homepage
    Nice, but what about the BitTorrent Linux Mirror Project [tlm-project.org]? They've been around for a while now. I think they at least deserve a mention, though they do kind of break the real advantage of BitTorrent, by re-hosting torrents. For low demand projects, this might actually make things worse.
  • The Linux Mirror Project [tlm-project.org] is a similar site that has been around for awhile.

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