I will keep this simple. Many people who use Gnutella are not actively sharing their files so you will often fail to get a download when you request one. My experience is that you will only find a successful download from about 5% of the hosts you try. You must be very active and request as many downloads as necessary to find co-operative hosts. Even then, you must watch over the download because many will stall and require you to take action to reconnect with the host. If you read through other threads on this forum, you will pick up many hints on how to run Limewire.

Good luck.