You are new to Phex and want to know the basics?
Be welcome to let this Guide lead you through the foxes den and show you the tricks and knacks of using Phex best for you.
This is a themed guide. If you just want a quick technical intro, please read Getting Started instead. But if you enjoy reading, please sit back and let yourself be taken into the world of Phex-p2p. Besides: While being themed, this guide is technically correct.
Firstoff, you'll need to invite the Fox into your house and tell him, where to go, and how to keep away from your chickens, but don't worry: This one is shy and wouldn't dare to touch anything without your explicit order.
To find your Phex, just check into the
foxes den and choose the kit which suits you best.
In MacOSX and Windows inviting the fox is straitforward, since which fox would reject the offer to get to know a new place. Just download it and doubleclick the file (If you have OSX and Safari is set to open safe files automatically, you might even be able to skip this step).
In Windows Phex now gets installed, and you can decide to let it into the open to find its skulk and get you interesting things (Start Phex).
In MacOSX you need to copy the unzipped Program to any place you want your newly grown kit to occupy. Then you can wake it to look around and begin to find its skulk.
If you have a GNU/Linux, you’ll have to have a Java Runtime and run the phex.jar file.
Sometimes things get between your Phex and its Skulk, for example a firewall or a router, which doesn’t allow the calls of other foxes to reach your cutie. Should that happen, you’ll have to
lend your pup a hand.
And now your Phex should be searching for its skulk, calling out to others and finding those, who wander between the skulks to carry its calls on to others.
But up to this step, your kit doesn’t have anything to offer to others, and so your Phex might have problems to be accepted into the larger skulk of Gnutella. To help your kit acquire some status, you have to tell it, where to find things to trade for the things it gets you from others.
Don’t worry now about losing anything. Foxes are cunning creatures, and nothing pleases this one more than sharing knowledge and crafting new things from ideas it gets from others, for nothing else it is, Phex carries to others: Pieces and Bits of knowledge from which the receiver crafts an exact copy of your files.
So it is time now, to show your Phex around and to show it, which parts of your Library you want to offer others in return for the vast archives of knowledge they let you access. Be advised, though, that your pup doesn’t know right from wrong or legal from illegal, so be careful in checking, that the parts of your library you wish to share don’t contain anything your aren’t allowed to pass on.
Then go into the Library Tab and click on the button to the bottom left: “Share Folder“.
Phex will then show you the view of your kit and you can roam your vast halls searching for the shelves you wish to share. Select one of the folders and share it, then you can show your kit the next shelve, until it knows all your share, all that which you hold so dear, that you want others to know of it and all that you think others might find useful, but once again consider that a fox doesn’t know right from wrong, so be certain that you truly want to share the shelves you show to your kit.
As your Phex now roams through those shared shelves, getting the scent of each file to present them to other foxes in the bigger skulk (In Tech-Speak: Hashing them), you can already send your kit on a search for the things, which interest you, and if others share them, your kit might carry their scent to you along with the scent of those who share it, so that you can easily tell your little cutie to get them for you.
Now no more is left for this guide to do, than to wish you a nice time with your kit, and to ask you, to let it in the open as long as possible, so that it can mature into a lovely tod or vixen.
And if you want to find other proud parents of Phex’ to share experiences or to get you some help, just check into the
Phex Forum or the
Phex Wiki.
Still more information to make Phex work even better for you is avaible in the Wiki-Article
Phex Optimization Tips written by Mike aka
Weatherlite.
And If you want to know, how the foxes communicate, just check into
GnuFU: Gnutella For Users, where you'll find information about Gnutella which doesn't dive into tech-speak or code-snippets, but explains the workings in easily comprehensive and yet accurate images and terms known from day to day life.
- Arne Babenhauserheide