Download via http and seed via bittorrent

So, you don’t think bittorrent download is fast enough for the openSUSE 11.0 betas? This is a very common complaint. On the other hand you wish to help take some of the load off the mirrors, and you like the protection that bittorrent offers from corrupted downloads.

I’m here to tell you, that in this case you can pretty much have your cake and eat it too. Here’s how:
(I’m using KTorrent, the workflow should be similar with other clients such as Azureus):

1a) Download your desired iso via http/ftp.

1b) Download deltaiso and apply it to your iso for the previous development release.

2) Get the corresponding torrent, but stop it immediately (right click -> Stop).

3) Move your complete iso to the folder created in step 2), overwriting what’s there. If you have applied a deltaiso you need to make sure that new iso is named exactly as the iso in the torrent.

4) Right click the stopped torrent, and select “Check Data Integrity” from the context menu.

This will check that your http download/applydeltaiso was successful. If the download/applydeltaiso was corrupt, you should only have to re-download the corrupt parts, meaning you won’t have to do another full download.

5) When the integrity check is finished you start the torrent (right click -> Start), and it’ll start seeding away.

You have now achieved the following, in a few simple steps.
* Fast initial download via http/ftp
* Verification that the download/applydeltaiso is not corrupt
* Helping openSUSE and mirrors by making bittorrent download faster for others
* Better karma