P2P for small group of friends

August 31, 2006 5:15 PM

Are there any P2P protocols (with clients for Windows, OS X, and Linux ideally) that are ideal for sharing files between a small group of friends?

I found Waste and DirectConnect, but Waste doesn't have great OS X support and Linux is effectively non-existant, and DirectConnect has similar issues (though it seems more mature than Waste).

The actual problem is how to let all of my dorm floormates and myself easily share music between each other.

posted by thebabelfish to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

I prefer waste because of the security level. DirectConnect is better, but still has Mac support issues, as the primary client (ShakesPEER) for Mac is buggy, esp. with large shares.
posted by SpecialK at 5:22 PM on August 31, 2006

(However, DC++ is what we use campuswide at Texas A&M)
posted by SpecialK at 5:23 PM on August 31, 2006

I tested out Qnext with a few friends and it seemed ok. I believe it is multi platform (Win, Mac, Linux).

It also includes other apps like instant messaging, jukebox (streaming audio from someone's PC), filesharing, video conference, etc.

You basically add other users as friends and can give them access to as many or as few of the different applications as you like.
posted by MarkLark at 5:37 PM on August 31, 2006

USB.

Get an external drive, drag your music onto it, have your friend do the same and "take" what he wants from you. He then passes it to the next person, and so on. When it comes back to you, it has all your friends' music. You add what you've bought since you last had it, and pass it on again, ad infinitum.
posted by popechunk at 8:03 PM on August 31, 2006

WASTE.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:12 PM on August 31, 2006

Are you and your floormates on the same (possibly wireless) LAN? Because if you're not trying to do this over the Internet, Windows file sharing will do what you want. Macs and most modern Linux distros have Samba built in to make this work for them too.
posted by flabdablet at 9:35 PM on August 31, 2006

You might want to look at Hamachi which lets you set up a virtual lan over the Internet.
posted by benzo8 at 11:01 PM on August 31, 2006

You'd think this would be easy, wouldn't you? But yeah, flabdablet's idea for using simple file sharing will work with a bit of password protection on it. Unless you want encryption in which case Waste is probably your best bet.

Don't use AllPeers, desite the hype. Crappy crappy crappy and really won't do what you need it to.

I think OpenNap might be the best solution for you - gives you chat as well as being simple to set up:
http://opennap.sourceforge.net/

For getting nice and complicated, you might want to take a look at drftpd:
http://www.drftpd.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/drftpd
... though whether that would work depends on your whole setup wherever you are...
posted by humuhumu at 3:49 AM on September 1, 2006

Just get a domain; host it on a webhost like Midphase that gives you 20GB of disk space cheap (there are plenty of others, shop around, but that's my suggestion); set up password-protected FTP accounts for your friends and upload all of your stuff.

Alternatively, there are also services like YouSendIt that will allow you to send files back and forth for free.
posted by lunarboy at 9:30 AM on September 1, 2006

linux + samba/netatalk + big hard drive.

You don't need peer to peer, you need a file server.
posted by jeversol at 1:03 PM on September 2, 2006