Transmission (BitTorrent client)

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Transmission
Transmission icon

Screenshot of Transmission GTK+
Developed by Transmission Project
Latest release 1.21 / May 22, 2008 (2008-05-22); 21 days ago
OS Mac OS X, Unix-like, BeOS iPhone OS
Available in multilingual
  • Mac OS X: 7 languages
  • GTK+: 22 languages
Genre BitTorrent
License MIT/GPL
Website transmissionbt.com

Transmission is a lightweight BitTorrent client which features a simple interface on top of a cross-platform back-end. It is free and open source software, mostly licensed under the MIT License. Transmission runs on Linux and other Unix-like systems (GTK+ interface), Mac OS X (Cocoa interface) and BeOS/ZETA (native interface). On 14 January 2008, it was adopted as the default Bittorrent client in the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu.[1] An unofficial port of Transmission (with a command-line interface) to the iPhone OS was accomplished on March 3, 2008.[2] As of January 10, 2008, Transmission has had over 230,000 downloads.[3] It is the most popular BitTorrent client downloaded from Mac software website MacUpdate.

Transmission uses a smaller amount of system resources than many other BitTorrent clients (such as Azureus).[4] The project aims to strike a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat. For this reason, Transmission is less fully featured than other clients. Keeping the interface simple and intuitive on all platforms is a key design goal.[5]

Contents

[edit] Features

[edit] All Platforms

[edit] Mac OS X specific

  • Transfer Management
    • Downloading and seeding queues
    • Basic scheduling
    • Auto-seeding options
    • Groups
  • Dock and Growl notifications
  • Customizable toolbar
  • Advanced progress box
  • Automatic updates using Sparkle
  • Universal Binary

[edit] Development

Transmission allows users to monitor a torrent's activity.
Transmission allows users to monitor a torrent's activity.

Daily Mac OS X build and source tarballs are available online. The project has a forum where users can discuss support issues and make features requests. They also have an IRC channel, #transmission, located on Freenode.

[edit] Early criticism

Main window on Mac OS X Leopard
Main window on Mac OS X Leopard

Version 0.6.1 of Transmission did not strictly adhere to the complete BitTorrent specification. This resulted in the banning of that version from many private trackers. The issues were resolved in the subsequent 0.70 release.

[edit] libTransmission

The Transmission back-end (libTransmission) also serves as the basis of the shareware Mac client Xtorrent, and the Transmission daemon. The daemon supports a web front-end called Clutch. Older versions have been ported to form the basis of the the update system for the video game Metal Gear Solid on PS3,[6], as well as the backend for ImageShack's BitTorrent service. libTransmission also utilizes some third party libraries, including libevent, libcrypto, miniupnp and libcurl.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pitt, Martin (2008-01-14). Ubuntu Changelog (en). Retrieved on 2008-05-15.
  2. ^ P2P torrent on the iPhone, a sad tale of woe, misery, abject failure... and then eventually success! by WickedPsyched.net, March 3, 2008
  3. ^ Kerr, Charles (January 10, 2008). Re: Proposing Transmission BitTorrent client as default (en). mail-archive.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-04.
  4. ^ Transmission Becomes Default BitTorrent Client for Ubuntu (en). TorrentFreak (January 30, 2008). Retrieved on 2008-05-04.
  5. ^ About Transmission (en). www.transmissionbt.com. Retrieved on 2008-05-15.
  6. ^ Transmission used in PS3 Metal Gear Solid Beta, Transmission forums