TheHub

Introduction

This is a guide for how to get to The Smashing Pumpkins lossless hub. The hub has only a few rules, as paraphrased below:

• PLEASE READ THE RULES. Excuses like "I didn't know" or "I forgot to switch folders" are unacceptable.
• NO MP3's. Do not debate this. Break this rule and you are banned. No exceptions. No whining about it either.
• The only ALLOWED lossless formats are:

    - SHN 
    - FLAC 
    - APE 

• DO NOT download a show in one format and re-encode it to another format (example, download a show in SHN, reformat the show to FLAC, then share it on the hub). If you want to re-encode a show for personal use, fine. Just don't share it here, as it will confuse the eventual downloader.
• Anything commercially available is not allowed (both music and film and TV. This also includes music videos until we hear different. No warez/cracked programs of any type allowed.
• No Porn. Sorry you sick perverts.
• The following is NOT allowed on the hub, for a variety of reasons:

    - Billy Corgan 2004-04-19 Metro show 
    - Spun out takes 
    - Gish rough mixes 
    - Zwan rough mixes 
    - PI & F (until I hear different) 
    - Hideout II Compilation - it's MP3 sourced 

Share any of these any you will be warned, then kicked, then banned.

• Share what you download (when possible). If it looks like there is a lot of leeching and no sharing, a minimum share amount may be imposed - like a gig or two to keep people honest.
• Have fun.

With that said, here's a guide for getting to the hub.

Windows

Here you have a plethora of clients, including the dreaded, official Neo-Modus Direct Client (NMDC) client. STAY AWAY FROM THIS PIECE OF JUNK. With that said, please grab a copy of DC++ (named after the C++ code employed) or one of its variants.

DC++

1) Get DC++ or some variant. This guide will assume you are using DC++ which can be found here. It is recommended that you obtain the latest version and occasionally check for updates as security vulnerabilities are patched and improvements implemented freqently.

2) Install DC++ from the installer or the ZIP file. Accept the License Agreement and select the components to install, as well as the directory to which DC++ will reside.

3) Run DC++, from the Start Menu or other shortcut.

Configuring Your Client

Upon running DC++ for the first time, the Settings menu will pop up. In the first Personal information, the only piece of information that is required here is "Nick". This is the username you will be using. You may also want to select a connections type, which will be publicly available to others.

Connection Settings

The next sub-menu below Personal information is Connection settings. Here, things can get a little tricky depending on your internet connection (ie. your use of a router, operating system, firewall, ISP). "Active" mode is selected by default, but this may require some configuring (refer to the Go Active section below). For further reference, you may want to read the "Help" file by clicking on the bottom right hand button. It is greatly advantageous to you and other fellow users if you are able to run in "Active" mode as you will then be able to connect to all other users, while "Passive" users can only connect to "Active" users.

Downloading Folder

In the Settings menu, the sub-menu Downloads should now be filled out. Default download directory will hold finished downloads upon completion. If left blank, this will default to a folder called "Downloads" in the directory where DC++ was initially installed.

Unfinished downloads directory contains incomplete files as they are downloading. Once they are finished, they will automatically be moved to the folder specified in the Default download directory box. Again, if left blank, unfinished files will reside in a folder named Incomplete in the DC++ installation folder.

In recent versions of the DC++ client, downloading limits were implemented such that you can control how many downloads you permit simultaneously, as well as a cumulative speed (ie. some Internet connections, when saturated with downloading, may hinder your uploading/outbound bandwidth). These boxes are voluntary.

Sharing

I don't have anything to share?! -Dont sweat it. There is no minimum share in the hub, but please try to share what you have downloaded upon completion.

If you do have files to share (Great!), click on Sharing sub-menu in Settings and click on the "Add folder" button button. Here you can add one or multiple directories as you choose. Again, to reiterate, do not share:

• MP3s. EVER.
• ANY copyrighted material
• The directory you download to
• Incomplete shows
• Commercial programs (Photoshop, etc.)
• Porn
• The shows as listed above in the Rules

... IN PROGRESS ... gaffer DOWNLOADING FILES

click the yellow star in the top menu. click the new button towards the bottom of the screen. put "tsphub.no-ip.com:2004" into the adress box. hit ok. double click the listing you have created. this will connect you to the hub. Set your client to have at least two slots. (File>Settings>Sharing)

Once you connect to the hub, you should see a chat window and a list of user names to the right. Double click a username to get that user's file list.

What do the icons next to the user names mean? -A key means that person is an OP. -A brickwall means they are passive. -If their icon is green, you have not tried to connect to them. -If it is blue, you have sucessfully connected to them -If it is red, you cannot connect to them.

What does "No slots availible" mean?!?!?! -Remember how you set your client to have two slots at the beginning of this? That means two people can download from you at a time. No Slots Availible means two people are already downloading from that person. You have to wait for a slot to open (and oftentimes there is a line) before you can download.

Will I lose my slots/place in line if I log off? -yes. You will lose your place in line if you exit that particular hub or close DC++, but your slots may stay open. Some people set their clients to close your slot if you leave a hub.

Linux

Well since I got the DC++ on linux to work, there is no reason not to talk about that one. Both DC++ and Valknut have their short comings, and I will discuss them here and then you can decide what you want to use.

Valknut (aka dcgui):

website http://dcgui.berlios.de This was for some time the only DC client that wasnt banned from hubs, but is slowly becoming banned as faking your share can be accomplished with this client (what people don't know is with the right knowlege of how to use linux, a share fake is very easy to accomplish, but please dont do it or ask how to). Valknut supports the normal features of Direct Connect, but in a horrid way. The gui is just clunky and up until the last majour change, didn't have tabs and most of it still does not. A lot of times when I am downloading something, I find that the files have errored, and most of the time I cannot even get a file list from people (which makes it terribly painful to use). The transfer pane doesnt have a side scroll bar, so if the file you are geting has a long path, forget knowing what the file is called. There are only two nice things that I can say about Valknut is that it has the ability to limit your upload speed (but not your download speed (the download speed part is written in, it just doesnt work at all)), and it rehases files fast.

Pros & Cons of Valknut
Pros:

• Can limit the upload speed
• Hashes files rather quickly
• Sudo tab system is built in (rather bad implementation)

Cons:

• Files frequently error
• Tab system is terrible
• Gui is clunky
• No horizontal scroll bar in the transfer window
• Search doesnt show the speed of the person
• Banned from alot of hub
• (I am sure that there are more that I can't remember)

Final Verdict: gets the job done, but barely :(

DC++ for Linux

this is too buggy, dont waste your time with it at the current moment. it has done nothing for me other than error out gtk and kill when it tries to load my share. i wish it worked thought :(
That is right, DC++ for Linux is available and screen shots can be found here. If someone has used DC++ for windows, then this would look very familiar. So what can I say about DC++ for linux, well not much as I have not really used it to get any files yet (I am waiting for my queue to finish with Valknut first), but I can tell you that it is very slick. It currently has no files that are released, but that doesnt stop most people from using it as the cvs is open and it is very easy to get and compile. It is leaps and bounds over Valknut in much the way how DC++ is when compared to NMDC (NeoModus Direct Connect, the official client). It has the nice tab system that is inheriant in DC++ for Windows and it also has the horizontal scroll at the bottom of the transfers window (yay!!!). There are how ever a few problems with it, upon hub entry you do not see the rule, this is a majour problem since if you don't see the rules, you will get kicked (and possibly banned). The other problem is in the user list, you can't see if a user is passive or active (in their icon, it shows in their tag) till after you try to connect (this is really no biggy, because you can just look at their tag, but still an annoyance none the less). It got every file list that I tried to get on the first try (amazing). The only really bad problem is that it takes a long time to hash a share (and i mean long, about 3 hours to hash my ~90 gig share) and tears up the performance of the machine. i feel that this is fine, as I only change my share once a week and i can rehash it when i go to bed.

Pros and Cons of DC++ for Linux
Pros:

• It is DC++ for Linux, do you need any more pros after this?
• Great tab system
• Horizontal scroll bar
• Uses TTH for real (at least I think it does, will look into that)?

Cons:

• Doesn't display the rules (this may actually be a setting that I missed)
• Hashing takes forever
• Can't see if someone is active or passive by their icon

Final Verdict: this client rocks, get it asap (or just to try since Valknut sucks)

Going the Valknut route

Though this isn't the best client, just to be fair, here is a guide.
1) Get Valknut. Use the normal means such as apt-get Valknut, urpmi Valknut, emerge Valknut, etc.

2) Once you have Valknut and it is installed, run the program and you will be presented with some options, they are blah blah blah (at work so i cant finish this as i dont have Valknut here)

Going the DC++ for Linux route

This is a good idea, trust me.
The guide on this site is not up,however, if you want to install DC++ on your Linux box the wonderful ubuntu community has provided a guide that can be located here Here is the start of my guide to get it to install. To install DC++ for Linux you must meet a few minimum requirements (this translates into a pain in the butt unless your distro has a package management system)
The requirements are (coppied directly from the readme)
Gtk+ 2.4
libglade 2.4
pthread
zlib
libbz2
scons
g++ 3.4 (Yes, this is REQUIRED for succesfull compilation!)
Meet all of these? Lets hope so

Now then what you must do is get the source. This needs to be done via cvs, since no files have been released yet.

• cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxdcpp.berlios.de:/cvsroot/linuxdcpp login

(leave password blank)

• cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxdcpp.berlios.de:/cvsroot/linuxdcpp co linuxdcpp

that should do the job for you. so all that is left is

• cd /location_to_where_it_is/linuxdcpp
• scons

and there you have it, just run the file afterwards and smile

Go Active!!!

"Passive" users that can be "Active" are one of the worst things, as they cannot connect to other "Passive" folks, thus limiting their own potential downloading capabilities as well as clogging the "Active" users' slots. You need to open your DC ports to be active, you can do this by checking somewhere like PortForward. However, not everybody can open there ports do to a restrictive ISP, but it is suggested that you try your best to open the ports.

To be active while running a firewall, you will have to forward ports (or disable the firewall). More instructions for this can be found at PortForward. For router users, you have to set a static IP and Forward ports. PortForward also has instructions for this. Feel free to contact us either via email, or connecting to the Hub in "Passive" mode while we walk you through the process.

-Syco54645, quandar, rhinowing and gaffer

Note: when adding information, please put your name on the bottom next to mine.