I wanted a box strictly for downloading...so...
I recently bought a Buffalo Linkstation HD-HG160LAN.
At 17~19 Watts running at full blast, it seemed like a great choice..
I bought this for a few reasons:
1) It was on sale ~ due to the small HD..
2) I wanted the HG version because I prefer a PPC to a MIPS.
3) It's gigabit
4) I can install linux on it.
So I bought it, and of course the first thing you do is hack it.
I installed Freelink on it..
So I wanted this to be a downloading box only, doing nothing but downloading. All the torrent clients on linux sucked badly, and just ate CPU like it was free, and so I ended up picking the ONLY torrent client that had both DHT and low CPU usage... rtorrent.
I tried to get the gui interface to work, but gave up on it as it required a bunch of recompiles etc.. So what I ended up doing was removing the apache and php and all the other crap, and basically reverted it back to its original caveman linux box.
I then installed 5 items and that's it:
1) Screen ~ This program kicks ass in ways I can't begin to describe.
#screen rtorrent
This gets you to rtorrent, but running under screen, the multi-terminal program. When you are about done, Ctrl-A-D exits without killing rtorrent, so downloading occurs still.
When you log back in later to recheck your rtorrent, just type:
screen -r
and it reattaches the previous process. NICE.
2) rTorrent ~ of course rtorrent itself. None of the gui's worked all that well, and I found out you really don't need it.
All you need is a rtorrent cheat sheet and you will be just fine.
3) iptraf ~ It tells you what's going on as far as your network.
4) Openssh ~ Turn off telnet and uninstall it. Use Openssh instead!
(Optional)
5) vsftpd ~ You eventually will need to get the files off your box, and ftp is a good choice.. The reason this is marked optional is because if you have openssh installed, you can use SCP, (in windows, you can use WinSCP) and not have to install ftp.
The PROBLEM is, ftp for me downloads at like 30MEGS/sec, while SCP downloads at like 560Kbits/sec. OUCH.. So I leave ftp on..
Also, because only nerds know how to use SCP, everybody else needs ftp..
So there you go, the way to go if you want download in a box.
The box has more than enough CPU and ram to handle rtorrent, you didn't install apache and php and (cough cough hack hack) mysql or something like that, and so it's not CPU or memory ladened. This is the perfect download box.. Now if only I can get xfs working on it instead of ext3, I'll be a happy camper..
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