Looking for an open-source BitTorrent tracker written in Python that I could hook into Minx...

Doh!

Yeah. That one might work.

Update: The art of helpful commenting:

# code duplication because ow.

Update: Yuggech.

Okay, so it's been a while since I installed the standard BitTorrent package on Linux.

The last time I did so was 4.0.something. The current release is 5.0.3.

4.0.x required Python 2.2 or later.

As for 5.0.3:

* Install Python, version 2.3 or later. (2.4 recommended) -- Fine. Got that.
* Install wxWidgets, version 2.6 or later, in the Unicode flavor. -- I'm not installing wxWidgets on a server just to make BitTorrent happy! I hope that this is only actually required for the GUI apps.
* Install wxPython, version 2.6 or later, in the Unicode flavor. -- Sod off.
* Install GTK, version 2.6 or later. -- Bugger that.
* Install Twisted, version 2 or later. -- No.
* Install PyCrypto, version 2 or later. -- Now that is actually a darn good idea.
* Install Psyco. -- Psyco is good. Requiring Psyco is very very bad.
* Install Zope.Interface. -- Sod off!

So 4.4.0 it is. 4.4 seems to be the end of a stable release, followed by a completely new release with these features:

* completely new UI -- Don't need it or want it.
* smart download/queuing behavior -- Don't need it.
* smart seeding behavior -- Don't need it.
* torrent priority system -- Don't need it.
* detailed progress bar and "piece bar" progress bar -- Don't need it.
* better save location management ("incomplete" and "finished" locations) -- Completely irrelevant.
* automatic bandwidth management - Hmm.
* download rate control -- Don't need it.
* transfer rate graphs -- Don't need it.
* choose which files to download first from a torrent -- Don't need it.
* better error handling and reporting -- Hmm.
* fast extensions (see bittorrent.org) -- Useful, yes, but not here.
* torrent "title" support (see bittorrent.org) -- There's nothing on bittorrent.org!
* multiple tracker support -- Actually, that might be something I could use.
* encryption support -- Don't need it.
* Zeroconf ("Rendezvous") local discovery -- Don't need it.
* sparse files -- Don't need it.
* threaded Disk IO -- Don't need it.
* translation update system -- Don't need it.
* now using wxWidgets instead of GTK on Windows, GUI is now native and should be a lot more stable -- Don't need it, don't want it, just make it go away!
* removed support for Python 2.2 -- Whatev.

Thanks, BitTorrent peeps, for at least keeping 4.4 around.

Update: libtorrent won't compile. Somewhere, deep in the jungle, a library is missing a .h file. Or something. Ick.

Update: The other thing I want to note, is that for something so popular, BitTorrent is incredibly underdocumented. The only place that the options to the tracker module are documented are in the program, and the only way to find them is by running the program, because they're all in translation files, and if you don't have all the crazy dependencies installed you can't run the program.

Blah.

Here's to statically-linked binaries. Yeah, I know they suck too. But they suck differently.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:40 PM | Comments (44) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)