DC

DC++ is an open-source file-sharing protocol mainly differentiated from other protocols by the fact that users share complete files and download the entire file from a single user by means of a direct connection. Some clients actually defy this and allow you to download the same file from multiple users, but they are in the minority. For a more complete overview of the protocol itself, see the wikipedia article on the subject.

There are multiple DC++ hubs around the world. The Cal hub is special because all the users are on the Berkeley network, and as a result, the data transferred does not count against a user's weekly bandwidth allowance.

Getting a client

First, download a DC++ client.

• Official Windows client
• Shakespeer – probably the only Mac OS X client that's still actively developed
  Note that if you're using a Mac OS earlier than 10.4, you will need to download version 0.8.5 and not the latest version.

Setting up

Once you've downloaded your client, you need to set it up to connect to the Cal network. The basic settings are:

Hub address: caldchub.no-ip.com
Username: anything you want
Password: leave blank

More detailed instructions are below.

Windows

Click on File, then Settings... in the DC++ menubar

Under Personal Information, fill out your nick (required) and other information if you want

Choose a location to hold your downloaded files. The two directories can be identical.

(a) Choose the folders you would like to share. First and foremost, your download directory should be here so that files you download are shared.
(b) Set the upload slots to 3 or 4 (this controls how many users can download from you at the same time)

Now click OK to save the settings. Immediately after you add shared folders, DC++ will hash the files in it so that they can be shared. In order to connect to the Cal hub, you must have at least 1 GB of hashed files.

The last thing you need to do is add the hub to your "Favorite hubs" list. To do this, click on the Add new Favorite hub toolbar button and fill in the following info:

Name: Berkeley Hub
Address: caldchub.no-ip.com

Then, click OK, then click the CHECKBOX next to the Berkeley Hub

Mac OS

After downloading Shakespeer, open the program.

• Go to Shakespeer→Preferences...
• Fill out the fields to your pleasing
• Click on Share
• Choose the download folders. They can be identical.
• Add folders to share. One of them should also be the downloads folder.
• Set Upload slots to be 3 or 4
• Close the Preferences window
• Click on Bookmarks in the Navigation pane
• Click New at the bottom of the window. Enter caldchub.no-ip.com as the address. Check the box next to the address you just filled in.
• It will take some time for Shakespeer to hash your files. You can check the progress at any time by going to Window→Show Server Messages; when hashing is done, finished hashing all files will be displayed there. Note that in order to connect to the Cal hub, you must have at least 1 GB of hashed files.

Linux

Type this into a terminal:

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxdcpp.berlios.de:/cvsroot/linuxdcpp login
(leave the password blank)
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.linuxdcpp.berlios.de:/cvsroot/linuxdcpp co linuxdcpp

Now you will have the current CVS checkout of the Linux DC++ client. It uses scons as its build system, not make, so you will probably need to install that (apt-get install scons or what have you). To build it, you just issue this command:

scons

It will require a lot of development libraries. Big ones are the GTK+ header files, glade header files, and bzip2 header files. Normally for your distro this will be the package name with a -dev or -devel appended. For example, in Fedora Core (my distro of choice) I needed to install gtk2-devel to get the GTK+ header files. As listed in the readme file, the dependencies are:

scons >= 0.96
pkg-config
g++ >= 3.4
gtk+-2.0 >= 2.6
gthread-2.0 >= 2.4
libglade-2.0 >= 2.4
pthread
zlib
libbz2

Of course, the names of the packages will be different for your distro. If you need help finding out the names, try asking politely on IRC.

After build the package you will have an executable named linuxdcpp in your current working directory. Run it (e.g. with ./linuxdcpp) and enjoy.

External links

• Calhub group on Facebook