Torrent: Demystified

What is a torrent?

A torrent is like a broker between a customer and a seller. It works in a peer-to-peer setup that means a true democracy; all are equal, no master-no slave.

So you need to download a classic movie, which may be on a computer(s), located anywhere across the globe.

How would you know where is it?

Torrent comes to help you here. You google for a torrent of this movie. Download the torrent and voila!.

Torrent has three primary components:

a) Seeders: People that have a copy of the movie you want
b) Leechers: That's you!
c) Torrent file : It has information about seeders and leechers.

While you are downloading your movie, torrent share the downloaded part with anyone else interested in downloading the same movie. So effectively every leecher becomes a seeder. Now you are even! Hail Democracy!!

Ubuntu 9.10: Wireless network problem with Broadcom Corporation BCM4312

Many laptops with Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g hardware shows no response to wireless network with Ubuntu 9.10 Casper.

I could solve this problem with the following method:

a) Go to System-> Administration->Hardware Drivers
Keep your system on Internet(wired ethernet) while doing this.

Install Broadcom 43 and Broadcom STA driver, activate them then.

b) Reboot and see if it work for you.

c) If not, then do the following:

sudo apt-get --purge remove bcmwl-kernel-source
sudo apt-get install patch
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

This should solve the matter. At least it worked for me :)


Ref: Ubuntu Forum
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1347483
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1043168

Running Ubuntu 9.10 Casper On your PC

A complete solution: Image Writing to Installation

Ubuntu is a free open source Linux distribution, primarily for desktop users. There are many reasons to use Ubuntu instead of other Linux distro(Just Google for it).

I am assuming that reader is an Ubuntu user on a x86 system and knows some stuff about Linux.

o) First thing is get the latest Ubuntu bundle(an .iso file) from Ubuntu website.
o) Now get a pen drive.
o) From "Application" menu, run USB creator.
Give the path of iso file and click create USB drive.
+ If pendrive is more than 4GB, You would get an error saying "partition not found":
Just do the following:
* Install gparted utility with Synopsis Bundle Manger
* Create a partition table with "gparted" on your pendrive
* Now create a FAT32 partition of size 1000MB on this pendrive
o) Run USB startup disk creator again.

o) Voila! You are done

Benefits:
o) You save money spent on CD/DVD to write Ubuntu image.
o) This method is very fast and reliable, compared to use of optical media.