Ubuntu download is Xmas YouTube number one

happygeek 0 406 Views

With Xmas fast approaching, one almost expects the unexpected. It would not come as a shock, for example, if a clip of a dancing cat were to be the most viewed video on YouTube this month, or for that matter one of some rather pathetic Harry Potter puppets, or even Britney Spears singing. Indeed, all of these clips feature in the top five, with millions of downloads. Yet none of them are at number one, this honour is currently reserved for a video of the Ubuntu Linux distribution being downloaded.

Yes, you read that right. And no, there is no catch. The computer doing the download does not explode, Tux the penguin does not start singing half way through, and there are no naked ladies involved. It is, pure and simple, just a video of Ubuntu being downloaded using the UseNeXT client. What's more, as I write this, it has been viewed almost 4 million times in December! The High School Musical blooper real can only claim 1.7 million views this month, Ubuntu Linux being downloaded hits 3.98 million.

So just what exactly is going on?

The blame would appear to lay with the UseNeXT download client itself, or rather the people behind it who have offered a $1000 prize to the person who can make a YouTube video showing the fastest download of the distro using the client. Under the banner Usenet Download World Record the guantlet would appear to have been well and truly taken up.

Apparently, the video must contain the following steps:

  1. Opening of the UseNeXT client
  2. Search for "ubuntu"
  3. Click on one of the first results in the size range 700 - 900 MB
  4. Click on download wizard
  5. Zoom on download size in the download wizard (download size is smaller because PAR files are not counted here)
  6. Zoom on download button and click on start download in download wizard
  7. Zoom on download speed in the status bar
  8. Click on wizard in the icon bar
  9. Zoom on progress bar in the download list
  10. Steps 7 and 9 can be repeated as often as you want during download
  11. As soon as download has finished, zoom on the progress bar to show the unpacking procedure
  12. Double click on download to show the downloaded file in Explorer

The current record, for the record, stands at 634Mb in just 66 seconds which is actually 34 seconds to download and 32 seconds to uncompress.

Dani AI

Generated

Good spot, — a distro-download clip sitting at the top of a video chart is worth a closer look. Short answer: visual evidence and raw numbers on a hosted video are easy to manufacture or misinterpret. Before treating a published screen capture as proof of a network record, treat it as a claim that needs reproducible evidence.

What to look for in the footage: single-take versus edited cuts; visible timestamps or a frame counter; whether the uploader shows both the client and an independent timing source; and whether the uploader provides raw logs or packet captures. Views and rankings can reflect promotion or automated traffic rather than genuine organic interest, so the clip’s popularity alone isn’t verification.

Concrete ways to verify a claimed download speed (for technically minded readers):

  • Reproduce the transfer in the same network path and conditions if possible.
  • Measure raw throughput with iperf3 between the test endpoints.
# server
iperf3 -s

# client
iperf3 -c SERVER_IP -P 4 -t 30
  • Capture the transfer with tcpdump/tshark to measure bytes over time and to produce an auditable pcap:
    sudo tcpdump -i eth0 host SERVER_IP -w transfer.pcap
  • Preserve the delivered file and publish checksums (MD5/SHA256) and an unedited screen recording showing the transfer alongside server-side logs.

One important caveat: what the video shows as “download finished” often includes local repair/unpack work (Usenet archives commonly use parity files), and those CPU/disk steps affect total elapsed time. For any record claim, ask for raw packet captures, server-side transfer logs, and the file checksum so independent parties can confirm the numbers. If that material isn’t provided, treat the clip as promotional content rather than a verified benchmark.

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