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aMule
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The All-platform eD2k Client
About
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aMule is a multi-platform ed2k client, fork of the eMule client, using the
wxWidgets class library. It was originally forked from the xMule project,
which in turn was forked from the lMule project. This in turn was the first
fork of eMule to run natively on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems.
Installation
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See INSTALL file
Configuration:
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- Go to the "Preferences" tab
- Enter a nickname or leave as the default value.
- Enter the "Download Capacity" and "Upload Capacity" according to your
Internet connection. All values in aMule are kiloBytes (kB), but your
Internet Service Provider's numbers are most likely kiloBits (kb).
8 kiloBits make up 1 kiloByte, so if your Internet Connection is 768kb
Downstream and 128kb Upstream (i.e. German Telekom DSL), your correct
values are:
Downstream: 768kb / 8 = 96kB, so you enter 96 as "Download Capacity"
Upstream: 128kb / 8 = 16kB, so you enter 16 as "Upload Capacity"
Anyway, these values are used to calculate the current bandwidth usage for
display purposes only (mainly for statistics). Nevertheless, you need to
know them to determine the following down/upload limits:
- Enter "Download Limit" and "Upload Limit" (IMPORTANT!)
Download Limit:
Leave this at 0, which stands for "no limit". However, if aMule uses
too much bandwidth and causes problems with other applications using
your Internet connection, it would be a good idea to limit this to
approximately 80% of your downstream capacity.
Upload Limit:
It is recommended that you set this limit to around 80% of your actual
upstream capacity, in order to avoid degrading the performance of your
connection.
Setting the Upload Limit to a value less than 10 will automatically reduce
your Download Limit after the following schema:
Upload Limit | Max Download
>= 10 | No limit
< 10 | Upload Limit * 4
< 4 | Upload Limit * 3
NOTE: 56k Modem users: aMule only accepts integral values for these
settings, you can't enter 1.6 or whatever your sweet-spot setting
is. Sorry.
- "Maximum Connections":
As a general rule, set it to 500 - 2000.
- "Maximum Sources per File":
This depends on how many files you tend to download at a time, if you
tend to download few files, high values are acceptable, otherwise go
for lower values so that all files will be able to get sources.
- Choose the directories you want to share with other users:
DO NOT SHARE YOUR COMPLETE HARDDISK!
It is suggested that you either use the "Incoming" folder or a separate
folder for the files you wish to share, to avoid inadvertently sharing
private files.
If you share more than 200 files, you should consider that some servers
have a hard limit due to resource constraints, which means that you may
be kicked from them if you share too many files or that some of your
files won't be populated to the network through that server. So it is not
always a good idea to share lots of files.
- Other:
The other options are pretty self-explanatory. If you don't know what it
does, don't touch it as a general rule. More information on getting started
can be found in the aMule wiki:
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/Getting_Started
Don't forget to connect to a server, or you probably won't download too much.
Basic aMule Tips
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* NEVER run aMule as root.
* If you are behind a firewall or router, be sure that the ports have been
opened. The default ports are 4662 (TCP). 4665 (UDP) and 4672 (UDP). If
these are blocked, you will receive a "LowID" which results in fewer
available sources for the files you are downloading.
* Obtain an appropriate server.met: e.g., if you are a dial-up, using
a large server list is not appropriate.
* Set your temp and shared directories in Preferences->Directories
* To recursively select a certain directory, right-click over it.
* You should *NOT* share
* Your temp download directory!
* Your /etc directory
* Probably not your /var, /lib, /boot, or /usr directory
* Certainly make sure that any really confidential files (password files,
private SSH keys, credit card numbers :) are *not* shared. So generally
do not share your entire home directory, although you might want to
share some files or directories in it.
* Remember that you get certain download privileges with those clients
(aMule, eMule, etc users) to whom you upload files, in the form of reduced
queue waits.
* Please note that compilation with optimizations is supported. However, if
you pull a Gentoo, we will probably just tell you to recompile aMule and/or
your system with sane compiler-flags before we will attempt to address the
problem.
Obtaining your first server list
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Use one of the following links in the "Update server.met from URL" box in
the Server tab. They are apparently updated every 20 minutes.
* The current top 50 servers (these fill up fast):
http://ocbmaurice.dyndns.org/pl/slist.pl/server.met?download
* The current top 150 servers:
http://ocbmaurice.dyndns.org/pl/slist.pl/server.met?download/server-good.met
* The biggest list (about 300 servers) maintained by the site. Only if you
have a very decent connection:
http://ocbmaurice.dyndns.org/pl/slist.pl/server.met?download/server-max.met
* Should maurice be down for some reasons, use this server.met instead:
http://www.srv1000.com/azz/server.met
If these are non-functional, simply google for 'server.met'.
Tranfers icons
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To find descriptions of the various icons found inside aMule, take a look at
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/Getting_Started#Icons_and_What_They_Signify
License
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aMule -- like eMule -- is released under the GNU General Public License.
See the "COPYING" file for details.
Developers
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See AUTHORS
FAQ:
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-- How do I know whether my ID is high or low? --
Look at the arrows at the bottom right corner, wrapping a world icon, next to
the server name you are connected to. If they're green, your ID is high. If
they're yellow, your ID is low.
-- What does high and low ID mean anyway? --
When your ID is high (green arrows), everything is fine.
When it's low (yellow arrows), you are probably behind a firewall or a
router, and other clients can't connect to you directly (which is a bad
thing). Please read the FAQ, search our wiki or forums on how to configure
your firewall/router for aMule.
NOTE: you can also get a low ID when the server you connected to is too busy
to answer properly, or simply badly configured. When you are sure your
settings are OK and you SHOULD have a high ID, connect to another server.
-- I'd like to search for specific file types, what filter stands for which files? --
File Type Extensions found (this list is far from being complete)
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Audio .mp3 .mp2 .mpc .wav .ogg .flac .aac .ape .au .wma
Video .avi .mpg .mpeg .ram .rm .vob .divx .mov .ogv .webm .vivo
Program .exe .com
Archive .zip .rar .ace .tar.gz .tar.bz2 .Z .arj .cbz .cbr
CDImage .bin .cue .iso .nrg .ccd .sub .img
Picture .jpg .jpeg .bmp .gif .tif .png
-- What are all those fancy colors in the download progress bar about? --
Each download in the the transfers window has a coloured bar to show current
file availability and progress.
* Black shows the parts of the file you already have
* Red indicates a part missing in all known sources
* Different shades of blue represent the availability of this part in the
sources. The darker the blue is the higher the availability
* Yellow denotes a part being downloaded
* The green bar on top shows the total download progress of this file
If you expand the download you see its sources with the corresponding
bar. Here the colours have a slightly different meaning:
* Black shows parts you are still missing
* Silver stands for parts this source is also missing
* Green indicates parts you already have
* Yellow denotes a part being uploaded to you
Learning how the progress bar works will greatly help your understanding
of the eD2k network.
-- Where can I get more information? --
Here are some links that might be of your interest:
* aMule Wiki (documentation pages)
http://wiki.amule.org
* aMule forums
http://forum.amule.org
* eMule documents
http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/help.cgi
Want to help?
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aMule is a free software project and requires the cooperation of its users
to improve the quality of the software. We welcome all contributions to the
project in the form of new features, bug fixes, feature requests, etc.
If you are not a programmer you can still contribute by providing good bug
reports when you come across a problem with aMule. A good bug report gives
the aMule Team information enough to reproduce the bug (so we can see it in
action) and fix it. If possible, try to isolate under which the bug occurs
(e.g. does it happen on some specific window, with some specific files, some
specific conditions etc.) and provide as much detail as you can in your
report.
If you are a programmer and fix a bug you observe, please send us a patch or
a note about how you fixed the problem.
IRC, Links and Contact
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IRC: Channel #aMule on FREENODE IRC Network (irc.freenode.net)
aMule homepage
http://www.amule.org
aMule related links
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/FAQ_eD2k-Kademlia
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/aMule
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/FAQ_aMule
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/FAQ_utils
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/Getting_Started
http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/aMule_problems
wxWidgets toolkit homepage
http://www.wxwidgets.org
eMule homepage
http://www.emule-project.net
Contact (administrative issues only!)
admin@amule.org
Legal Notice
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aMule is an interface to the ed2k network. As such, the aMule developers have
absolutely no control or say over what is transferred on this medium and
cannot be held liable for any non-personal copyright infringements or other
illegal activities.
-- Last modified Thu Sep 29 05:22:45 CEST 2011 --
