more on the hassles of Mac download for access
Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:22 pm
More on Mldonkey
I am having to be a bit of an explorer to get a handle on this mac p2p downloading matter. For example, within the folder for mldonkey there is a folder marked install.txt. Even a non-techie such as myself knows that this probably means it is a file of instructions, in layman’s English words hopefully, on how to install the program. But opening it reads nothing except “See distrib/Install.txt”. It doesn’t tell where that file is.
So I look around the folder and find a folder called ‘distrib’ which I open thinking this is a likely bet. Yes, it has several text files (for beginners like myself this mean words that a human can understand, it’s not programming language). There are several choices – nothing with something so obvious as ‘open this first if you want to install mldonkey’. One is called ‘install’ so I presume these are the instructions.
But out of curiosity I open the FAQ (again, for children of the sixties and seventies who haven’t caught up with the computer age – this means ‘ frequently asked questions’) by clicking on it to learn about the program since it seems necessary to have some understanding of the guts of it (unlike standard Mac programs that require virtually zero understanding – those are just set up and go right away.)
Like most computer manual writers the writer is obviously not an educator. For to the answer of ‘what is mldonkey’ instead of something straightforward and practical like ‘this is a computer program that allows one to share files’ for this beginner it’s techno-mumbo jumbo…
“Formerly, mldonkey was a Linux client for the eDonkey network, built from a reverse-engineered version of the protocol. Now, it is also able to connect to multiple networks (gnutella, Direct-Connect, Soulseek, etc).”
Ask me if I care. After explaining the purpose a simple ‘it’ll work on many Napster-like but non-centralized file-sharing systems which we will explain later’ would have sufficed.
“MLdonkey runs on most Unix clones: Linux (x86, alpha, sparc), Mac OS X, Solaris x86, Free/OpenBSD, etc.”
Yawn.
“It runs as a daemon,”
Great, now I will have demons in my laptop?
And wasn’t daemon some UK server that problems with the law some years back?
More spouting of technical features that I have never heard of.
Question three gets to something useful – where to find support.
Question four says that if you want the most recent version it is necessary to download pieces and assemble it yourself. Sounds pretty weird to me. Never heard of that before.
The section on how to run the program sounds like the headaches of when I was learning DOS.
How do you control mldonkey? Three choices: telnet (as I recall this was a geek-friendly system before the internet that some libraries used), a web interface, and something called GTK-GUI. That might as well be KGB to me. No mention of what I downloaded supposedly as a simplifier – mlmac (which looks a lot easier and harmonious visually with the whole Mac aesthetic).
Section five reads that there is an edonkey plug-in. I know that a plug-in is an additional software. Presumably this means I can use FLM links. There is a Limewire plugin also.
I open the install file and am lost within the first paragraph…
“If you want to get up and running quickly and easily-
Compile mldonkey without GUI support
You have to have zlib, zlib-dev and m4 packages installed.”
That’s not what I call quick and easy if I don’t recognize the shop talk. But doing a finder search I see that my computer does indeed have four files called ‘zlib’ more or less, the parent files being gnutella and cdk. M4? Nothing comes up. But a manual search of the config folder in the full folder of mldonkey reveals a file called acloc.m4. Ah, so m4 is a type of file, not the name of one, again, like I am supposed to know that!
If any Mac user with minimal computer skills has found an easier way than going this route I’d appreciate hearing about it. Bottom line: Four hours after starting this whole process I am not at step one in downloading FLM movies.
Fact is I’d much rather just buy a DVD for $10. – $15. But there doesn’t appear to be an option of girl-film-afficianado collections in the brick and mortar (real world) marketplace. And it doesn’t help having no credit card or mailing address (I am constantly on the road). Back in Canada I found a few sellers on ebay of rare DVDs and VHS films but they are all into this paypal thing and few ship internationally. What’s more, none wanted to accept traditional payment – a postal money order (anonymous). I really feel left behind in this cyber commerce and IT world of 2006. And you can bet I am not the only one.
Postscript: downloading and setting up ‘ialarm’ to work was a breeze compared to this. That freeware took about 15 minutes.
I am having to be a bit of an explorer to get a handle on this mac p2p downloading matter. For example, within the folder for mldonkey there is a folder marked install.txt. Even a non-techie such as myself knows that this probably means it is a file of instructions, in layman’s English words hopefully, on how to install the program. But opening it reads nothing except “See distrib/Install.txt”. It doesn’t tell where that file is.
So I look around the folder and find a folder called ‘distrib’ which I open thinking this is a likely bet. Yes, it has several text files (for beginners like myself this mean words that a human can understand, it’s not programming language). There are several choices – nothing with something so obvious as ‘open this first if you want to install mldonkey’. One is called ‘install’ so I presume these are the instructions.
But out of curiosity I open the FAQ (again, for children of the sixties and seventies who haven’t caught up with the computer age – this means ‘ frequently asked questions’) by clicking on it to learn about the program since it seems necessary to have some understanding of the guts of it (unlike standard Mac programs that require virtually zero understanding – those are just set up and go right away.)
Like most computer manual writers the writer is obviously not an educator. For to the answer of ‘what is mldonkey’ instead of something straightforward and practical like ‘this is a computer program that allows one to share files’ for this beginner it’s techno-mumbo jumbo…
“Formerly, mldonkey was a Linux client for the eDonkey network, built from a reverse-engineered version of the protocol. Now, it is also able to connect to multiple networks (gnutella, Direct-Connect, Soulseek, etc).”
Ask me if I care. After explaining the purpose a simple ‘it’ll work on many Napster-like but non-centralized file-sharing systems which we will explain later’ would have sufficed.
“MLdonkey runs on most Unix clones: Linux (x86, alpha, sparc), Mac OS X, Solaris x86, Free/OpenBSD, etc.”
Yawn.
“It runs as a daemon,”
Great, now I will have demons in my laptop?
And wasn’t daemon some UK server that problems with the law some years back?More spouting of technical features that I have never heard of.
Question three gets to something useful – where to find support.
Question four says that if you want the most recent version it is necessary to download pieces and assemble it yourself. Sounds pretty weird to me. Never heard of that before.
The section on how to run the program sounds like the headaches of when I was learning DOS.
How do you control mldonkey? Three choices: telnet (as I recall this was a geek-friendly system before the internet that some libraries used), a web interface, and something called GTK-GUI. That might as well be KGB to me. No mention of what I downloaded supposedly as a simplifier – mlmac (which looks a lot easier and harmonious visually with the whole Mac aesthetic).
Section five reads that there is an edonkey plug-in. I know that a plug-in is an additional software. Presumably this means I can use FLM links. There is a Limewire plugin also.
I open the install file and am lost within the first paragraph…
“If you want to get up and running quickly and easily-
Compile mldonkey without GUI support
You have to have zlib, zlib-dev and m4 packages installed.”
That’s not what I call quick and easy if I don’t recognize the shop talk. But doing a finder search I see that my computer does indeed have four files called ‘zlib’ more or less, the parent files being gnutella and cdk. M4? Nothing comes up. But a manual search of the config folder in the full folder of mldonkey reveals a file called acloc.m4. Ah, so m4 is a type of file, not the name of one, again, like I am supposed to know that!
If any Mac user with minimal computer skills has found an easier way than going this route I’d appreciate hearing about it. Bottom line: Four hours after starting this whole process I am not at step one in downloading FLM movies.
Fact is I’d much rather just buy a DVD for $10. – $15. But there doesn’t appear to be an option of girl-film-afficianado collections in the brick and mortar (real world) marketplace. And it doesn’t help having no credit card or mailing address (I am constantly on the road). Back in Canada I found a few sellers on ebay of rare DVDs and VHS films but they are all into this paypal thing and few ship internationally. What’s more, none wanted to accept traditional payment – a postal money order (anonymous). I really feel left behind in this cyber commerce and IT world of 2006. And you can bet I am not the only one.
Postscript: downloading and setting up ‘ialarm’ to work was a breeze compared to this. That freeware took about 15 minutes.