KaZaa client for GNU/Linux, the new sharing era begins
by David LeCount

Editor's Note: This article was published in Oct 2001, the KaZaA client we reviewed is no longer available. Please read our DISCLAIMER here

The GNU/Linux operating system has come a long way since its creation almost a decade ago. Most of its users believe it competes with Windows on many levels. Despite all the free software, it can still miss out on equivalents for certain specialized Windows programs.

During its hey-day, Napster enjoyed the patronage of many open source software users around the globe. Since Napster closed its doors to the free software world, it has become difficult to download mp3's and other media on GNU/Linux. However, that may have changed now that KaZaa, the second largest file-sharing community since Napster, has released a client for Linux. It's in the alpha stage but is showing good potential.





This software, though relatively free of bells and whistles, is quite effective. The KaZaa client is available as a binary download only from the KaZaa Media Desktop download page at http://www.kazaa.com/index.php?page=download#lin. Once you download a binary tarball which contains the program and two text files, you can simply extract the program with the command

tar -xvzf kza.linux.tar.gz

If you run this command from your user home directory, a subdirectory called "kza-0.401" will be create with the executable program in it. (The latest release of the KaZaa client is version 0.4.) To start the KaZaa client, simply change directories to the installation and run the executable "kza". The text-based interface begins with a rather lengthy terms of use agreement, which you must page through and agree to, and then prompts you for your username and password. If you don't already have one, simply type "new". You'll then be prompted for setting up a new account on the KaZaa network as shown in Figure A.


Figure A: Setting up an account is simple


After you get your account set up, the client logs onto the KaZaa network and brings you to the search screen shown in Figure B. (Before you get this far, you might want to read the brief instructions in the README file located in your installation directory.) The available commands for the client are displayed on the screen to remind you what they are. For an alpha text-based client, KaZaa has quite a few features.


Figure B: Search by artist name or title. Beck returns quite a few hits.


To search for an artist or song, enter a name or title at the prompt and simply wait for the results to pop up. You can then scroll through the results and press enter to select a highlighted title and start downloading. You can select as many titles as you want to download, but only three will download simultaneously while the remaining requested files are queued for download. As one file finishes, the next in line will begin downloading if available.

While the KaZaa Windows clients allow you to set preferences for as many simultaneous downloads as you'd like, the text based alpha client relies on 3 as a default. After you have your downloads going, you can press '>' to see their current progress. Then just press '<' to return to the search screen.

A word to command line shy user: don't be afraid because it's command based. If you know enough to untar it and execute it, you should be able to easily use the program. It doesn't get much simpler than this. As with any alpha program, there are a few bugs however. I managed to lock up the client very early on by pressing '<' while already at the search screen. You have to be careful what you do or you can crash it. The instructions say your downloads will resume when you restart it though, which is convenient. This resume feature won't work however if a crash occurs prior to you restarting the client, which is fairly typical of alpha-ware.

Sharing files with the Linux KaZaa client isn't optional it's mandatory. All files that you download end up in the "kza-downloads" directory that's created in your user home directory and are shared with the KaZaa network. Uploads (the term KaZaa uses for other network users downloading your shared files) are completed without any input from the user. If you have a slow Internet connection, you'll only know when an upload is happening when your downloads begin slowing down. You can't see what is being uploaded from you or cancel it. This can be a nuisance. If you want to avoid this problem, simply move your downloaded files to another directory when they're finished. If you have fast Internet access, be nice and share with those who don't.

This is a big step for Linux users who like to download media and a small step for other Linux users. It goes to show that Linux is making progress everyday and could soon have the same level of support as Windows. This program is a bit crude and is missing many important features (as opposed to the Windows counterpart) but it gets the job done well and will probably be what I use to download media from the Internet for quite some time. If you hate dual booting to Windows just to download some music or you're struggling with other Linux clients, I suggest you give KaZaa for Linux a try.