Hello, i’ve been thinking about using soulseek for the very first time to download some music and such. I had a couple of questions from the c/piracy community.
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Do i need to stay logged in on soulseek even if i am or am not sharing stuff? Obviously i can’t be online and have my pc powered on 24/7 as i have a life outside the web (and other things aswell). so i hope that’s understandable as to why i asked, i was worried i’d get banned if i don’t be online like all the time.
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Would a vpn work just fine with soulseek even if the vpn has support for port forwarding? There’s an obvious reason as to why i’d use one.
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Which soulseek client should i use, Nicotine+? or soulseek’s actual client (i use Linux Mint, in case y’all were wondering.)
That’s all i want to ask for now, hopefully these aren’t dumb to ask. I’ll be waiting for replies (might not reply to all of them so i apologize), thanks!
Don’t use soul seek it was written by an Israeli
Obviously i can’t be online and have my pc powered on 24/7 as i have a life outside the web
You… don’t have to sit in front of your computer while it’s on… leave it on and go to work/school/sleep. Sharing is caring. 🙂
Fair enough, i think i will try to keep my pc powered on and share at least something!
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This is why I picked up an old SFF desktop. Idle power is about 12 watts. I can live with that - my previous box idled at 100w.
- No.
- Yes.
- I’ve only used Nicotine+ and it’s fine.
Straightforward… i like that! thanks for your reply!!
Caveat : some individual users may block you for not sharing or never being online, however the network itself won’t ban you.
Is “i use Linux Mint, in case y’all were wondering” the mint variant of “i use arch btw”?
Come to think of it. Mint and Arch users do have that in common.
No, i just thought when i said something about a soulseek client i kinda thought someone would ask “wait what operating system do you use?” and i thought it would’ve been alright to clarify about that. Putting that in the post wasn’t supposed to be some variant of the arch btw meme.
My apologies for the confusion.
Sorry i was only making a joke, not hating on you :)
Love soulseek but please do try and share some stuff and leave you computer on from time to time so that other people can search / download what you are sharing. Whilst it isn’t a requirement and you won’t get banned for not doing so it is basic etiquette in my opinion and without people sharing resources like these will slowly die.
In terms of clients I would suggest trying both out. The majority of people recommend nicotine+ but personally I don’t understand it, I find the official client much better even though it has a few quirks mainly due to searching and navigating others files seems to be a lot better in my experience.
Nicotine+ is great.
If Docker is your thing, slskd is good.
I could not figure out how to actually log into slskd
Per the readme,
Once the container is running you can access the web UI over HTTP on port 5030, or HTTPS on port 5031. The default username and password are slskd and slskd, respectively. You’ll want to change these if the application will be internet facing.
Ha sorry, wasn’t specific, to the soulseek network after, it errors out with: Failed to reconnect: "Username may not be null or an empty string (Parameter ‘username’)
I remember creating an account… Somewhere? (it’s been months since I initially attempted lol)
I was using Nicotine+ but having slskd on my server is a plus
When you get the config dialed in, the simplicity makes it 10x better than N+ in my opinion.
Any tips? Anything that stands out to you?
No tips, I just didn’t find the configuration process very intuitive. This was compounded by my needing to essentially translate some of my preferred N+ settings to the slskd yaml config.
And Seeker if on Android.
I’ve been using soulseek for like 20 years and it’s awesome. You don’t have to be logged on constantly, never had an issue with it before, basically only turn my computer on if I want to download something.
Not sure about the VPN, but I don’t think it’ll matter.
I use the base soulseek client. It’s simple and easy and works great. Never tried another one though.
I like soulseek-qt more than Nicotine, which feels buggy to me. So here’s a vote for the base client.
I’m going to mention SLSKD if you’re at all into self hosting. I run that on a crap laptop at home, and can access it via wireguard/tailscale, then from my phone handle adding new downloads. This is borderline a required feature for me because I learn about a lot of music via word of mouth and being able to go grab it on the spot is great functionality.
Check out slskd its a self hostable web based soulseek client that rocks… Sits on tour PC or server and do the fun for you.
I’m not sure about question 1, but I think the answer is yes, you do need to be logged in to share unless you have some other setup going on like a dedicated server or something. I just use it on my PC and try to leave it on when I can, but nobody ever seems to download from me, haha.
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I use a VPN, haven’t had any issues or had to configure anything for it specifically.
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I do use nicotine+ (also on Linux) because I had some issues with the actual program downloaded from their website. Not sure what it was because I didn’t really try to fix it after I found out about Nicotine+. It works great.
alright noted, thanks!! and tbh i mainly asked about question 1 cause i was worried if i’d get banned if i don’t be online 24/7 (i’ll find a way to edit my post actually to clarify). anyway sorry for my yapping, thank you again for answering!
No problemo! The only thing I’ve run into with regards to being banned by other users is to not have anything or very little available for download. I got a warning from someone I downloaded from when I first joined because my library was very small and I didn’t have my filesystem figured out yet so I was sharing the wrong folders.
Also on my end, when I have a download queued for weeks or sometimes months, and the user never seems to log in, that can be frustrating. But I’m like you I don’t have my computer on 24/7, just try to be available when I can and have my whole music folder available for sharing, haven’t gotten any complaints yet.
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