Happy day

I was very happy to find this page today, while piecing together a Crux port for axel.

axel is a console weenie’s best friend. I mean, wget is nice, but wget doesn’t give me this kind of performance:

kmandla@cc99p01: ~/downloads$ axel -a http://ftp.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/UBUNTU-CDS/hardy/ubuntu-8.04.1-alternate-i386.iso
Initializing download: http://ftp.ecc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/UBUNTU-CDS/hardy/ubuntu-8.04.1-alternate-i386.iso
File size: 732446720 bytes
Opening output file ubuntu-8.04.1-alternate-i386.iso
Starting download

Connection 1 finished ]
Connection 0 finished ]
Connection 2 finished ]
[100%] [..................................................] [8304.9KB/s] [00:00]

Downloaded 698.5 megabytes in 1:25 seconds. (8304.89 KB/s)

wget rolls in around five minutes or so, peaking at something like 2.4Mbps. Yawn.

axel is like a wget that forgot to take its medication. And this is consistent behavior for axel on an in-country server with any speed to it. The stuff comes in so fast the drive light doesn’t flicker — it just stays on. 😈

Unless you’re one of those people who insists that the command line is the way of the past, I strongly suggest trying it out. And the fact that it has a new home is good news. Yeah, I know, it changed hands in January, but still: It’s good news. I like it when projects find new owners.

Now if only some talented python artist would deign to pick up ObMenu, my little world would be complete. 🙂

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