mldonkey doesn't work out of the box

[Robert Persson]

I installed mldonkey on dapper, but it doesn't start up. Presumably I need to edit something, but I'm b*ggered if I know what.

When I had a gentoo system on the other hand, mldonkey setup was almost painless. I simply had to add the init script to the the default runlevel and then enter the web interface to set everything else up. This is wrong. Gentoo isn't supposed to be painless.

[Matti Lindell (mlind)]

What version of mldonkey?

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

2.7.1-2ubuntu2

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

I've just dpkg-reconfigured mldonkey-server (which was an ordeal in itself - see bug #77290) and tried launching it via the init script, but I get the same error as before, which was:

root@mr-rusty:/home/robert# dpkg-reconfigure mldonkey-server
Stopping MLDonkey: mlnet.
Starting MLDonkey: mlnet configuration file prevent mlnet to be started (use force-start).
root@mr-rusty:/home/robert# /etc/init.d/mldonkey-server force-start
Starting MLDonkey: mlnet (unset) is not a valid directory.

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

A WORKAROUND:

The following procedure got my server started:

$ sudo -s
# sudo -u p2p touch /home/p2p/downloads.ini
# /etc/init.d/mldonkey-server force-start

However this does not entirely fix the problem, because every time you want to restart the server you will have to use "/etc/init.d/mldonkey-server force-start", which means that the server won't automatically start when your system starts unless you edit /etc/init.d/mldonkey-server so that "start" behaves like "force-start".

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

One further step is needed to get "/etc/init.d/mldonkey-server start" to work properly:
In /etc/default/mldonkey-server, change

"LAUNCH_AT_STARTUP=false"

to

"LAUNCH_AT_STARTUP=true"

That this isn't set to true by default is a bug.

[David Santamaría Rogado (howl)]

Actual versions in gutsy or hardy doesn't have this issue.

[Robert Persson (ireneshusband)]

I've just today been trying to get this program working on Hardy and it looks like LAUNCH_AT_STARTUP is still set to false by default. Apart from that everything seems to work OK now.

[David Santamaría Rogado (howl)]

Robert, the package asks, at install time, if you want it to start or not to start when the computers do the same. If you didn't see it you should report another bug, but first try this "sudo dpkg-reconfigure mldonkey-server", it should ask you to launch at start in the console. When installing via synaptic the same question is asked but in a new graphical window, if it ask don't report the bug.