The quick start guide:

here's my basic tutorial for it:

findshit.geekpalace.com:6346

(note:this was an original server address that I poster a God-awfle long time ago. I would suggesst checking out http://gnutella.wego.com for the best and/or latest server addresses.)

there is a main window when you first boot up gnutella, below that is two buttons, remove and add. next to that is a field, you put the above server name (findshit.geekpalace.com:6346) in there, click add.

now on the far left, go up to the window that has listings of "gnutellanet, uploads, downloads..., click config.

now you have to tell it where to save the new files to, so do that. then you need to tell gnutella where to find files to share, click add directory. NOW CLICK RESCAN!!! it will catolouge all those files in that folder for searchablity. you'll also find somthing called "connection speed". put that at your avg connection speed, roughly.

now go back up to that gnutellanet, uploads, downloads... box and select "downloads", search "pink floyd" or "metallica", and you should get a fairly large list (90-490)results for those more popular bands. song names like "american woman" only got me results of like 40-70. email me at toasty@subdimension.com for more questions, or check out www.nearlydeaf.8m.com for a tutorial

http://gnutella.nerdherd.net/ is also a great resource.

Update(11/3/00): Alright, this is a (small) collection of articles talking about the slow-down/destruction/death(/meyhem) of gnutella....

WHY IS GNUTELLA SO DAMN SLOW AND HOW CAN I MAKE IT FASTER? - ok maybe it doesn't tell you how it can go faster, but it's the best intermediate article explaining the limits of Gnutella. (added Feb 15, 2001)

Gnutella Not Scaling?

Posted by Hemos on Friday September 22, @12:59PM
from the peer-to-peer-salvation dept.
cbull writes "ZDNet Music has an article that makes an argument that "Gnutella is Going Down in Flames". Basically, the argument is that Gnutella isn't as scalable as Napster."

-one article i read said that the search strings end up using 16kbps of your average 28kbps connection, which is why downloads are just so damned slow. gnutella in the long run was intended for file sharing across 4 or 5 friends that all had dsl, the traffic for search strings is insane on a several-million user scale. some people run two copies of gnutella, one, a public searchable copy that's only on occiasonally, and then a copy that is connected to a smaller group of users (less than 200 users). try hooking up with a couple of your static ip friendly (read: cable or dsl) users, have them run gnutella always, and then have a couple of friends use the dsl user as the "master server".

Bandwidth Barriers To Gnutella Network Scalability

Posted by Hemos on Tuesday September 12, @09:16AM
from the all-must-have-high-speed dept.
tinla writes "Clip2 have written a mini-report based upon sampling the Guntella Network during Aug and Sept. Includes the famous Napster Flood (when Napster almost ceased). Most telling is that Gnutella Network may have hit its scalability limit ALREADY thanks to all the modem connections searches must transverse."

Consider this: file-sharing systems work best when they reach critical mass -- only once they have a significant number of users is it likely that someone out there will have the file you want. That's why Napster has continued to grow; with 30 million users, the odds are in your favor that one or two of them will have what you need. But as soon as a file-sharing system has critical mass, it's big enough and threatening enough to become the copyright protectorate's next legal target, and those file-trading masses are also going to strain the network to its capacity and beyond. That's the Gnutella paradox. The attainment of widespread popularity may in fact signal a file-trading software program's imminent demise. If the decentralized Gnutella can't handle the legal and technical threats that come from mass usage, what system can? Or are music traders doomed to confront a future in which each new "next Napster" is progressively undermined by its own success?

For nine months, Mr. Frankel and his team worked in silence behind the corporate wall of AOL, in the company's San Francisco music headquarters. And then, one day in mid-March, the statement: a little program called Gnutella, hidden on a back page of Nullsoft's Web site. It was an early "alpha" version of what was to be an open-source (the code would be freely available to all) file-sharing system, like the increasingly controversial Napster program, but lacking the vulnerabilities -- centralized servers, lack of anonymity -- that made Napster so easy to attack.
Mr. Kan estimates that roughly a million copies of the program were downloaded from his site that day. Today, on an average day, tens of thousands of users use Gnutella to exchange MP3 files, plus porn, pirated software "warez," illegal movies, and other digital detritus, both pirated and legitimate. But all the traffic has put a strain on Gnutella, and the program's weaknesses are starting to show. Mr. Kan, ever the upbeat evangelist for the technology, cheerfully admits that Gnutella has had its faults, but he also believes that Gnutella is ready for widespread use.

there were an awful lot of "free riders," users who were happy to download files but weren't willing to share their own. In fact, 70 percent of all Gnutella users don't share files, and of the 30 percent who do, the top 1 percent share 40 percent of all files. During a 24-hour period, Mr. Adar and Mr. Huberman observed 31,395 hosts -- but of that group, 314 hosts were serving the majority of the files.

In fact, Mr. Frankel's own release notes reveal that Gnutella was designed for use by roughly only 350 "nodes" (or hosts); in a widely distributed email attachment he posited that Gnutella wouldn't be scalable past 5,000 users. It's incredible that the software has survived the wear-and-tear of hundreds of thousands of users to this point. But it's also looking increasingly doubtful that it will be able to handle much more traffic; the system is already slowing to a crawl, and Gnutella's more devoted developers are worried about what is to come.

http://www.herring.com/insider/2000/1002/tech-off-salon-gnutella100200-home.html

FAQ/Overview of Gnutella

The Question:

I've got gnutella installed and everything is seemingly as it should be configured based on your instructions. It doesn't seem to be connecting though, it says searching... but there is no activity and nothing is ever found. What am I doing wrong. Also can you explain how this software is more bandwidth friendly than Napster? Thanks, M-

The Awnser:

hey, yeah i know the problem, what happened is that the guy who runs the findshit.geekpalace.com:6346 screwed things up, so that server's down. his ISP probably got mad at him or somthing...free services on the net tend to change without documentation most of the time...dunno. Anyways, the place to go for "main" servers is http://gnutella.nerdherd.net/ which has listings right under the "downloads" section. also, for a list of up to the minute servers, check out http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~havardot/betaz/GNUTELLA.net , you're bound to get connected that way. If you're still having trouble, email me and i'll see what i can do. I managed to connect right away today after work with no trouble, although it took a minute or two for all the servers to connect.

a server you may want to try:

capnbry.dyndns.org:22674

About the bandwidth advangage over napster...hmm, to tell you the truth, I can't see why there would be one.

How napster works is that you have a listing of all the files on your computer, which is scanned by the napster servers when you sign on, and then that list is tagged with your IP addy. Then others using napster can sign on, and search napster's database for assorted MP3's, and the napster server will then give the napster client your IP addy and directions to the MP3 on your HD.

Gnutella is the freeware version of napster, and as a consequence, it isn't owned by anybody, well, in theroy. So to get around the "who owns which of Gnutella's servers", The guys over at Nullsoft came up with the concept of a "peer owned" network, where everybody's the server, and everybody's the client, much like win9x networking and file sharing, except this is over IP and you can limit what people can search for (basically block important stuff like documents, bank statements, ect). Only problem with gnutella is that it's much like ye-olde coax cable network, where everybody has a list of everybody else's computer (IP addy), except that you download their list of everybody's computers to your computer, expanding your list. The "list" is the list of computers that are connected to your computer for searching and downloading from. As a consequence, everybody's search requests go through your computer, and no doubt that'll send your ping rocketing skywards. High ping=crappier connection. Especially in quake.

So in conclusion, napster is more friendly than gnutella due to the lower system resources. The converse, however, is that if napster kicks the bucket due to copyright law, you can easily fall back on gnutella; also, gnutella supports these file formats: mp3;mp2;mp1;mpg;vqf;avi;mpeg;wav;mod;voc;it;xm;s3m;stm;wma;mov;asf;zip;rar. Napster only supports MP3.

The Question:

Hey dude, I have a firewall at work, I dont think I can connect to gnutella using 'findshit.geekpalace.com:6346 '. It just plain wont work....do you know of a way I can get around this? Do I have to use a different port? thanks for your site,zach leary

The Awnser:

i'm assuming you've gotten gnutella to work at home w/o a firewall, if not,
check out http://www.nearlydeaf.8m.com/gnutella.html
once you've gotten things configured, go into your browser settings, and
figure out what port you're connecting through. This should be 8080 or 2624
or some number along those lines. You'll be able to find this in your
"connection" part of the settings menu. on the config screen of gnutella,
there is a port number seting, change the port number to the port that is
used for your internet browser. that *should* solve your problem. if not,
check out http://www.nearlydeaf.8m.com/gnutella.html

if that *still* doesn't work out, email me and i'll see what i can do.

/Hadlock
/toasty@subdimension.com
/http://www.nearlydeaf.8m.com

The Question:

I have version .491 and I use a cable modem (roadrunner as you can see by my addy).I never find a host. It doesn't seem like it's doing anything. suggestions?

The Awnser:

First you need to find a gnutella server. the older versions (.5 and below) tried connecting to a gnutella.net server, which doesn't exist anymore thanks to AOL. anyways, i would suggest connecting to

capnbry.dyndns.org:22674

as your napster server, if this still doesn't work, check out my gnutella page (http://www.nearlydeaf.8m.com/gnutella.html)

once you connect to that server, you shouldn't have any problems connecting any times afterwards.

/Hadlock
/toasty@subdimension.com
/http://www.nearlydeaf.8m.com

~Hadlock

Everything on this site copyright Nearly Deaf 2000. You can contact the webmaster at hadlock@subdimension.com