Download the same torrent from Windows and Ubuntu

Thanks Kasun for pointing out this feature to me.

If you are a torrent downloader and a person who needs to switch between Windows and Ubuntu frequently, you need to continuously download your torrents from both operating systems. Most torrent clients facilitates this requirement. I'm going to demonstrate this feature using 2 bittorrent clients named, uTorrent (Windows) and Transmission (Ubuntu). But this can be applied on any modern torrent client.

What actually happens here is each client starts downloading from where the other client left off. Obviously for this, both clients must save the files to the same location on the hard disk.

I'm going to start with Windows assuming you are running uTorrent on it. I assume you don't need much explanation with uTorrent.

Starting the torrent

1. Download and save the .torrent file you need.
2. Start the download from uTorrent. But when you give the download location, save it to a path where it is accessible from Ubuntu as well. For this example I'll assume it is D:\Downloads.
3. Suppose in the middle of the download you decided to go to Ubuntu. Assume you were at 41% of the download.

Continuing the torrent from Ubuntu

1. If you haven't done so already, install Transmission from the Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu. It's pretty easy and straightforward to configure if you are a torrent user.
2. You can access Transmission from Applications -> Internet menu.
3. Open the same .torrent file you used before. (or you can download it again) It will be opened from Transmission and You'll get the Torrent Options dialog box. (Note the 0% download progress of files)
4. For the Destination Folder, give the same location you used before. For example, on Ubuntu it may be something like /media/sda2/Downloads.
5. If you have done it correctly, download progress of all files should be automatically updated. If not, you can click the "Verify Local Data" button to update the download progress. (This will take some time for large torrents)
6. Click "Add" to start the download. Transmission will continue downloading from where you left off earlier.

Continuing from Windows

1. You can also continue the torrent from Windows if you decide to leave Ubuntu and go to Windows.
2. Open uTorrent. The old torrent entry must still be there. Stop the torrent if it is running.
3. Right click the torrent and click "Force Re-Check" from the menu. uTorrent will update the download progress of the files. (This will take some time for large torrents)
4. When it has finished updating you can start the torrent to continue downloading from that point.
5. This procedure is the same for Transmission. You can right click the torrent and choose "Verify Local Data".

The procedure should not be much different even if you use other torrent clients. There maybe some different terms they may be using but the basics are the same.

Enjoy!
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Solve Ubuntu Network Manager problems

If you are a user of Ubuntu 8.10 or 9.04 you know how awful the built-in Network Manager is. It doesn't save your settings, and settings doesn't get applied so it's literary impossible to change your IP address using it.

One solution is to remove the Network Manager and edit the network configuration files manually. But there's an easier approach. You can install Wicd to do the configuration for you. This is an alternative to the default network manager which does it job right. It's really simple and straightforward to use.

Here are the simple steps required.

1. Install wicd through Synaptic Package Manager.
2. Network Manager will be removed from the tray panel when you install wicd.
3. Go to System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications and disable the Network Manager.
4. If newly installed wicd network icon isn't there in the tray panel, launch it from Applications -> Internet -> Wicd Network Manager. It will start automatically from next startup.
5. In the Wicd Manager, expand Wired Network section and click Advanced Settings.
6. Enter your IP address details here. The settings will be applied as soon as you click the OK button.
   
7. You can open a terminal and type "ifconfig" to check whether the IP address settings have been correctly applied.

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Ubuntu NVIDIA Control Panel

Ubuntu 8.10 now has a control panel for NVIDIA graphics cards. My graphics card is NVIDIA Geforce 9600GT. This control panel has almost all the features you have in Windows NVIDIA Control Center. You can access it via System -> Administration -> NVIDIA X Server Settings

It includes settings for screens, color correction, OpenGL settings and even GPU statistics which shows processing power and the core temperature. See images below.




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4GB RAM issue with 32 bit Operating Systems

I recently upgraded my old desktop and came across with this interesting issue. This would be useful for many of us since most of us are still using 32 bit operating systems. Just take this article as an early warning.

Upgrade configuration:

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66GHz, 1066FSB, 3MB L2, E7300 (arround Rs. 14,000/=)
  
• 2GB x 2 RAM (Dual Channel, 800MHz) (arround Rs. 3800/= x 2)
• Intel DG31PR Motherboard (arround Rs. 7500/=)

This issue I had was having 4GB of memory. Well, I've reached the maximum addressable memory limit of 32 bit systems, right? So I should be able to use all 4GB as memory. But unfortunately, that was not the case. All I have is 3.2GB of memory on 32 bit Windows XP and 32 bit Ubuntu 8.10.



So where did my memory go?
Theoretically, the 32 bit systems are limited to 4GB of addressable memory. The problem is you can't allocate all those 4GB address space to RAM alone. Many other devices connected to the mother board (including the memory in video card) are mapped to the same 4GB address space. So there should be an address range dedicated to address those devices. So you are left with only 3.2GB of RAM address space.

According to what I've read from the internet, you have to use a 64 bit OS (I'm planning to put Vista 64 bit on my one) to utilize the full RAM address space. There's another facility called "Physical Address Extension (PAE)" provided by the motherboard to allow applications to address more than 4GB of memory on 32 bit systems. But I'm not clear about what it does and it seems to have it's own issues with device drivers.

Things to keep in mind
Maybe I have spent too much on RAM! Anyway having 3GB RAM this way is better than having 2GB and 1GB RAM sticks since dual channel gives you performance advantage. It won't be a problem at all if you are going to use a 64 bit OS (that's what I'm going to do). If that didn't work due to any reason I'll have to be stuck with a 32 bit OS and 3.2GB of RAM. Anyway that also should be enough for most current games.

more on this later...
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Update
As Gayan has pointed out, 64 bit OS alone cannot support more than 4GB. The motherboard should have a feature called "Memory Remapping" to map device memory addresses above 4GB (see first comment). It appears my motherboard doesn't support that feature. So 3.2GB is more of a hardware limitation for me.

Update 2
I tried adding /PAE switch to XP 32 bit. It still showed me 3.2GB of RAM. Maybe in the background it's using all 4GB or whatever. Anyway, Vista 64 bit SP1 seems to have fixed the problem. It showed me 4GB RAM after I installed it. I hope this would be the end of my problem.

Update 3
This is how it is shown in Windows 7 RC 32bit. Avoids user confusion and easilly understandable.

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Ubuntu 8.10

Well, well, well, after a series of posts on iPhone, here's one for Ubuntu 8.10. I just went through a quick trip to see what are the new features that is directly noticeable (other than those small small version number changes!)

Tip: You can make Ubuntu interface significantly nicer by making changes to system font sizes. In laptops "Subpixel smoothing" works great. These settings gave me a nice professional look for the overall interface.

1. Wallpaper is definitely better than Gutsy.
2. As usual, networking is faster than windows.
3. It took my laptop's ATI X200M video driver automatically. Desktop effects enabled. (I like that)
4. My sound card is also working fine. (Skype runs well)
   
5. Nice softer look in Human theme.
6. One click Shut Down menu. (I love it!)
   
   
7. A Shut Down dialog box is available via System -> Shut Down
   
   
   
8. Revamped Network Manager 0.7 (I wished they didn't)
   
   This is a total disaster. Hey, I can see and edit my MAC address and MTU! Wonderful ha! I know so many home users who needs to see the MAC address of their NIC. Last time I checked, lot of users were having problems with packet fragmentation problems and MTU. I take it that changing the IP address is not so important! Because it's in the 3rd tab! After MAC and after 802.1x security. This will make things really easy for novice users!
   
   
   And it has absolutely NO MEMORY at all. It doesn't save any of my network settings. Is this a joke? This screenshot shows my 'ifconfig' output and IPv4 settings. The IP address and subnet masks were all set here moments ago! When I reopen the network manager settings are all gone. It's better if they send a fix for this but this is certainly not the way to handle major releases.
   
   It's significantly better if they kept the old Network Manager. But they just upgrade for the sake of upgrading.
9. USB Startup Disk
   Now you can create a CD image of Ubuntu on the USB drive very easily and use that to install ubuntu.

Well that's what you see at the first glance. The only bad impression I had was the new Network Manager which is not good at all! It seems Shuttleworth is taking good features from "Apple" GUIs and integrating with Ubuntu, which is a good thing. The new shut down menu is like the one in MacOS X. And the new Disk usage bar in the installer look like the one in iTunes.


This is the iPhone disk usage bar in iTunes:


That's it. Share your experience!
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