Sunday September 3, 2006 14:19
Command line download accelerator with axel
Posted by as Information Insemination
axel has been digged, and so I spent some time to try how cool could this said software be. axel is a command line based download accelerator, which would probably replace my favorite downloader, wget in some if not all situations.
As usual, gentoo’s emerge saves my day;
Calculating dependencies… done!
>>> Emerging (1 of 1) net-misc/axel-1.0b to /
>>> Downloading http://mirror.oscc.org.my/gentoo/distfiles/axel-1.0b.tar.gz
–20:17:20– http://mirror.oscc.org.my/gentoo/distfiles/axel-1.0b.tar.gz
=> `/home/gentoo/distfiles/axel-1.0b.tar.gz’
Resolving mirror.oscc.org.my… 210.187.27.207
Connecting to mirror.oscc.org.my|210.187.27.207|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 43,293 (42K) [application/x-gzip]
100%[============================================================>] 43,293 117.62K/s
20:17:20 (117.47 KB/s) – `/home/gentoo/distfiles/axel-1.0b.tar.gz’ saved [43293/43293]
>>> checking ebuild checksums 
>>> checking auxfile checksums
>>> checking miscfile checksums
>>> checking axel-1.0b.tar.gz
>>> Unpacking source…
>>> Unpacking axel-1.0b.tar.gz to /var/tmp/portage/axel-1.0b/work
>>> Source unpacked.
>>> Compiling source in /var/tmp/portage/axel-1.0b/work/axel-1.0b …
[.............................]
| Gentoo’s emerge (command line interface to gentoo’s package/software management system) is just a little example of how Linux, and Open Source in general can extend one’s life by reducing the headache caused by overpriced softwares yet comes with tricky licensing scheme. With thousands of freely available softwares, installable with just a single command (ok, GUI installer / package management system is also available but I’m not showing it here. That’ll just make me seems less l337, hehe ), the money (and time, effort, etc2) saved can be used to live life to the fullest, and to worry less over the afterlife for not being a software pirate. |
shakir@herugrim ~ $ wget http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/linux-2.2.26.tar.bz2
–20:19:18– http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/linux-2.2.26.tar.bz2
=> `linux-2.2.26.tar.bz2′
Resolving www.kernel.org… 204.152.191.5, 204.152.191.37
Connecting to www.kernel.org|204.152.191.5|:80… connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response… 200 OK
Length: 15,754,692 (15M) [application/x-bzip2]
3% [> ] 510,017 16.19K/s ETA 07:38
shakir@herugrim ~ $ axel http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/linux-2.2.26.tar.bz2
Initializing download: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.2/linux-2.2.26.tar.bz2
File size: 15754692 bytes
Opening output file linux-2.2.26.tar.bz2.0
Starting download
[ 0%] ………. ………. ………. ………. ………. [ 29.4KB/s]
[ 0%] ………. ………. ………. ………. ………. [ 42.9KB/s]
[ 0%] ………. ………. ………. ………. ………. [ 54.3KB/s]
[ 0%] ………. ………. ………. ………. ………. [ 51.3KB/s]
[ 1%] ………. ………. ………. ………. ………. [ 62.2KB/s]
[ 1%] ………. ………. ………. ………. ………. [ 58.7KB/s]
Everybody should agree that we have a clear winner here. The most prominent drawback of axel to me is that it couldn’t resume a partially downloaded file, and feature-wise, wget seems to get the extra points. Here’s a quick one to see how many options does each programs roughly have;
shakir@herugrim ~ $ wget –help | wc -l
129
shakir@herugrim ~ $ axel –help | wc -l
14
I must say that really is a lot of difference.. My friend has also mentioned aget in his blog but although I haven’t tried that out, the software seems to be cool, and useful. Combine these tools in your shell scripts, put it in a cron job to help you solve your day to day jobs / problems and start being a lazy guy; doing almost nothing for the rest of the day…
5 Responses to Command line download accelerator with axel
Irwan
September 3rd, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Aku prefer prozilla
http://prozilla.genesys.ro/
Why? Simply because the features are so “dahsyat sangat”, hehe. Prozilla features:
-Supports FTP & HTTP including redirection (ProZilla & ProzGUI).
-Resume Supported (ProZilla & ProzGUI).
-Complete acceleration: The file will be downloaded as fast as possible as your bandwidth allows if not otherwise specified (ProZilla & ProzGUI).
-Unlike certain other download accelerators available for Linux, this really works.
-The number of connections that prozilla uses can be specified (ProZilla & ProzGUI).
-FTPsearch support now permits fetching Mirror locations and pinging them and selecting the fastest server is automatically done (ProZilla & ProzGUI).
-Downloading the same file in parts from several servers at once to increase speed (ProzGUI).
shakir
September 3rd, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Yup. And don’t forget other Linux based downloader such as d4x (Downloader 4 X), and Firefox extensions that integrate them with Firefox, say Flashgot (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/220/) and DownloadWith(https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/27/) to name a few.
zamri
September 4th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Yeah. I agree with Irwan. I have used prozilla for years and it is the best download accelerator for Linux. Best used in console. The GUI frontend is still not very user friendly. at least to me.
shakir
September 4th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I was a fan of prozilla until Gentoo mask it (it’s not in the stable/tested list) for security reason. But then, yeah, it roxx. Don’t forget to install its firefox extensions y’all..
mrG
February 17th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Just tried axel on the openoffice.org ISO and it was indeed much faster … because it crapped out at 65% of the file, twice, with no retry, and with no resume, it meant that I had to download that first 65% over again on the second try that just bombed in a different place. So my review: nice concept, unusable implementation.
I’d tried prozilla but it wouldn’t run under Ubuntu Gutsy for reasons that are not quite clear. Has anyone been successful getting this to work?