Hi Werner and utu,

As to not having a md5 error in recent years, neither have I, but clearly for different reasons. I was seeing about 50% bad downloads. I tracked this to FTP sometimes thinking that it should do a NL -> CR/LF translation on the files. Of course, I was using Windows and I expect that you use Linux to download so would never see this. But I also expect that most novices to Knoppix are also downloading the ISO in Windows. Never have had this problem with any other binary FTP download in Windows, but must have had over two dozen bad downloads in my first few years on Knoppix FTP servers before the torrents were offered.

I'm not sure why your torrent speed was so slow. Of course, I'm downloading the EN version rather than the DE version and there are a lot more seeders. There also could be an issue with some clients artificially slowing down if you don't have a router set up to properly forward ports, but recent clients seem to be getting past this nicely. I haven't forwarded any ports for the bittorrent protocol in my current router and I'm still seeing great speeds (as contrasted to the mirrors) and I'm seeing that I have plenty of piers that I'm both getting data from and sharing data with.

Perhaps the lower demand for the DE version could mean that any one mirror can keep up with it's demands, but I sure didn't see that on the EN mirrors.

For these reasons, I think the torrents are still a much better recommendation for the average user.