1 2 ----------- 3 aMule 4 ----------- 5 The All-platform eD2k Client 6 7 8 About 9------- 10 aMule is a multi-platform ed2k client, fork of the eMule client, using the 11 wxWidgets class library. It was originally forked from the xMule project, 12 which in turn was forked from the lMule project. This in turn was the first 13 fork of eMule to run natively on GNU/Linux and other Unix-like systems. 14 15 16 Installation 17-------------- 18 See INSTALL file 19 20 21 Configuration: 22---------------- 23 - Go to the "Preferences" tab 24 25 - Enter a nickname or leave as the default value. 26 27 - Enter the "Download Capacity" and "Upload Capacity" according to your 28 Internet connection. All values in aMule are kiloBytes (kB), but your 29 Internet Service Provider's numbers are most likely kiloBits (kb). 30 31 8 kiloBits make up 1 kiloByte, so if your Internet Connection is 768kb 32 Downstream and 128kb Upstream (i.e. German Telekom DSL), your correct 33 values are: 34 35 Downstream: 768kb / 8 = 96kB, so you enter 96 as "Download Capacity" 36 Upstream: 128kb / 8 = 16kB, so you enter 16 as "Upload Capacity" 37 38 Anyway, these values are used to calculate the current bandwidth usage for 39 display purposes only (mainly for statistics). Nevertheless, you need to 40 know them to determine the following down/upload limits: 41 42 - Enter "Download Limit" and "Upload Limit" (IMPORTANT!) 43 44 Download Limit: 45 Leave this at 0, which stands for "no limit". However, if aMule uses 46 too much bandwidth and causes problems with other applications using 47 your Internet connection, it would be a good idea to limit this to 48 approximately 80% of your downstream capacity. 49 50 Upload Limit: 51 It is recommended that you set this limit to around 80% of your actual 52 upstream capacity, in order to avoid degrading the performance of your 53 connection. 54 55 Setting the Upload Limit to a value less than 10 will automatically reduce 56 your Download Limit after the following schema: 57 58 Upload Limit | Max Download 59 >= 10 | No limit 60 < 10 | Upload Limit * 4 61 < 4 | Upload Limit * 3 62 63 64 NOTE: 56k Modem users: aMule only accepts integral values for these 65 settings, you can't enter 1.6 or whatever your sweet-spot setting 66 is. Sorry. 67 68 - "Maximum Connections": 69 As a general rule, set it to 500 - 2000. 70 71 - "Maximum Sources per File": 72 This depends on how many files you tend to download at a time, if you 73 tend to download few files, high values are acceptable, otherwise go 74 for lower values so that all files will be able to get sources. 75 76 - Choose the directories you want to share with other users: 77 DO NOT SHARE YOUR COMPLETE HARDDISK! 78 79 It is suggested that you either use the "Incoming" folder or a separate 80 folder for the files you wish to share, to avoid inadvertently sharing 81 private files. 82 83 If you share more than 200 files, you should consider that some servers 84 have a hard limit due to resource constraints, which means that you may 85 be kicked from them if you share too many files or that some of your 86 files won't be populated to the network through that server. So it is not 87 always a good idea to share lots of files. 88 89 - Other: 90 The other options are pretty self-explanatory. If you don't know what it 91 does, don't touch it as a general rule. More information on getting started 92 can be found in the aMule wiki: 93 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/Getting_Started 94 95 Don't forget to connect to a server, or you probably won't download too much. 96 97 98 Basic aMule Tips 99------------------ 100 * NEVER run aMule as root. 101 * If you are behind a firewall or router, be sure that the ports have been 102 opened. The default ports are 4662 (TCP). 4665 (UDP) and 4672 (UDP). If 103 these are blocked, you will receive a "LowID" which results in fewer 104 available sources for the files you are downloading. 105 * Obtain an appropriate server.met: e.g., if you are a dial-up, using 106 a large server list is not appropriate. 107 * Set your temp and shared directories in Preferences->Directories 108 * To recursively select a certain directory, right-click over it. 109 * You should *NOT* share 110 * Your temp download directory! 111 * Your /etc directory 112 * Probably not your /var, /lib, /boot, or /usr directory 113 * Certainly make sure that any really confidential files (password files, 114 private SSH keys, credit card numbers :) are *not* shared. So generally 115 do not share your entire home directory, although you might want to 116 share some files or directories in it. 117 * Remember that you get certain download privileges with those clients 118 (aMule, eMule, etc users) to whom you upload files, in the form of reduced 119 queue waits. 120 * Please note that compilation with optimizations is supported. However, if 121 you pull a Gentoo, we will probably just tell you to recompile aMule and/or 122 your system with sane compiler-flags before we will attempt to address the 123 problem. 124 125 126 Obtaining your first server list 127---------------------------------- 128 Use one of the following links in the "Update server.met from URL" box in 129 the Server tab. They are apparently updated every 20 minutes. 130 131 * The current top 50 servers (these fill up fast): 132 http://ocbmaurice.dyndns.org/pl/slist.pl/server.met?download 133 * The current top 150 servers: 134 http://ocbmaurice.dyndns.org/pl/slist.pl/server.met?download/server-good.met 135 * The biggest list (about 300 servers) maintained by the site. Only if you 136 have a very decent connection: 137 http://ocbmaurice.dyndns.org/pl/slist.pl/server.met?download/server-max.met 138 * Should maurice be down for some reasons, use this server.met instead: 139 http://www.srv1000.com/azz/server.met 140 141 If these are non-functional, simply google for 'server.met'. 142 143 144 Tranfers icons 145---------------- 146 To find descriptions of the various icons found inside aMule, take a look at 147 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/Getting_Started#Icons_and_What_They_Signify 148 149 150 License 151--------- 152 aMule -- like eMule -- is released under the GNU General Public License. 153 See the "COPYING" file for details. 154 155 156 Developers 157------------ 158 See AUTHORS 159 160 161 FAQ: 162------ 163 -- How do I know whether my ID is high or low? -- 164 165 Look at the arrows at the bottom right corner, wrapping a world icon, next to 166 the server name you are connected to. If they're green, your ID is high. If 167 they're yellow, your ID is low. 168 169 170 -- What does high and low ID mean anyway? -- 171 172 When your ID is high (green arrows), everything is fine. 173 When it's low (yellow arrows), you are probably behind a firewall or a 174 router, and other clients can't connect to you directly (which is a bad 175 thing). Please read the FAQ, search our wiki or forums on how to configure 176 your firewall/router for aMule. 177 178 NOTE: you can also get a low ID when the server you connected to is too busy 179 to answer properly, or simply badly configured. When you are sure your 180 settings are OK and you SHOULD have a high ID, connect to another server. 181 182 183 -- I'd like to search for specific file types, what filter stands for which files? -- 184 185 File Type Extensions found (this list is far from being complete) 186 -------------------------------------------------------------------- 187 Audio .mp3 .mp2 .mpc .wav .ogg .flac .aac .ape .au .wma 188 Video .avi .mpg .mpeg .ram .rm .vob .divx .mov .ogv .webm .vivo 189 Program .exe .com 190 Archive .zip .rar .ace .tar.gz .tar.bz2 .Z .arj .cbz .cbr 191 CDImage .bin .cue .iso .nrg .ccd .sub .img 192 Picture .jpg .jpeg .bmp .gif .tif .png 193 194 195 -- What are all those fancy colors in the download progress bar about? -- 196 197 Each download in the the transfers window has a coloured bar to show current 198 file availability and progress. 199 200 * Black shows the parts of the file you already have 201 * Red indicates a part missing in all known sources 202 * Different shades of blue represent the availability of this part in the 203 sources. The darker the blue is the higher the availability 204 * Yellow denotes a part being downloaded 205 * The green bar on top shows the total download progress of this file 206 207 If you expand the download you see its sources with the corresponding 208 bar. Here the colours have a slightly different meaning: 209 210 * Black shows parts you are still missing 211 * Silver stands for parts this source is also missing 212 * Green indicates parts you already have 213 * Yellow denotes a part being uploaded to you 214 215 Learning how the progress bar works will greatly help your understanding 216 of the eD2k network. 217 218 219 -- Where can I get more information? -- 220 221 Here are some links that might be of your interest: 222 223 * aMule Wiki (documentation pages) 224 http://wiki.amule.org 225 226 * aMule forums 227 http://forum.amule.org 228 229 * eMule documents 230 http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/help.cgi 231 232 233 Want to help? 234--------------- 235 aMule is a free software project and requires the cooperation of its users 236 to improve the quality of the software. We welcome all contributions to the 237 project in the form of new features, bug fixes, feature requests, etc. 238 239 If you are not a programmer you can still contribute by providing good bug 240 reports when you come across a problem with aMule. A good bug report gives 241 the aMule Team information enough to reproduce the bug (so we can see it in 242 action) and fix it. If possible, try to isolate under which the bug occurs 243 (e.g. does it happen on some specific window, with some specific files, some 244 specific conditions etc.) and provide as much detail as you can in your 245 report. 246 247 If you are a programmer and fix a bug you observe, please send us a patch or 248 a note about how you fixed the problem. 249 250 251 IRC, Links and Contact 252------------- 253 IRC: Channel #aMule on FREENODE IRC Network (irc.freenode.net) 254 255 aMule homepage 256 http://www.amule.org 257 258 aMule related links 259 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/FAQ_eD2k-Kademlia 260 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/aMule 261 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/FAQ_aMule 262 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/FAQ_utils 263 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/Getting_Started 264 http://wiki.amule.org/index.php/aMule_problems 265 266 wxWidgets toolkit homepage 267 http://www.wxwidgets.org 268 269 eMule homepage 270 http://www.emule-project.net 271 272 Contact (administrative issues only!) 273 admin@amule.org 274 275 Legal Notice 276-------------- 277 278 aMule is an interface to the ed2k network. As such, the aMule developers have 279 absolutely no control or say over what is transferred on this medium and 280 cannot be held liable for any non-personal copyright infringements or other 281 illegal activities. 282 283 284-- Last modified Thu Sep 29 05:22:45 CEST 2011 -- 285