Firstly allow me to introduce myself.

I've been using Linux for a number of years now, (varying distros), and up until recently, (2-3 weeks), I've used GNOME exclusively.

All that has changed with the advent of KDE 4.x.

I've been dipping my toe into the water ever since and made the final migration, as I said earlier, about 2-3 weeks ago.

With the exception of Firefox, I have adhered to KDE only apps, which has taken some adjusting but I really felt it necessary in order to really commit myself to the change.

Enough babble, my apologies.

On to KTorrent.

I'm currently running KTorrent 3.2.1 on Kubuntu 9:04, (Jaunty) and KTorent 3.2.2 on Fedora 11 (Leonidas)

Prior to migrating to KDE I eventually settled on Deluge as my sole client on Ubuntu, (several releases).

My lack of tolerance for any application name, GNOME or KDE that simply tacks a G or K to the front of a word not withstanding, I really like KTorrent.

The gui layout / presentation of information is great, configuration options clearly labeled and accessible, and it has a good range of plugins available by default.

To be fair I was also very happy with Deluge under GNOME, in every aspect, (creative name btw), apart from the lack of plugins with later releases.

I have been experiencing speed and other issues with KTorrent however, not with all torrents mind you, for the most part it performs well.

But with low seed / leach numbers in particular this is where problems occur.

Not surprising you might say but please hear me out.

The problems I've experienced and the steps to address them are as follows;

1. slow speeds, (to be expected with low seed / peer levels), more on that later.

I have had however had some success in improving this by following many tips form numerous (including this), forums.

2. stalling, which at times is quite frequent.

Often the problem will right itself, though it takes some time to do so, or a restart of the client is required.

3. difficulty in connecting to trackers, (errors), on occasion.

As above.

4. disregarding the full range of available peers.

Once a torrent is started KTorrent seems to fixate on the same peers, that is to say if there are 10 seeds and 15 peers, it will connect to the same seeds and peers as it did from the start even after a restart or the system has been rebooted.

Rarely will it access additional peers, if one drops out. A scrape will sometimes correct this but only for a short time.

I've experimented by kicking a particular peer, and then doing a scrape, it will reconnect to the same peer.

I've even experimented with banning a peer, and even though there a number of other peers available, a scrape will not effect a connection to any others.

Upon a restart or system reboot it will connect to the same set of peers, kicked banned or otherwise. Most annoying.

To that end I have finally resorted to installing Deluge in order to compare performance, with the same port, download/upload limits settingd etc.

I tested by restarting from scratch, two torrents, (one at a time), that have been both slow and problematic and downloaded each over a half hour period. First with KTorrent and then Deluge.

Deluge, by comparison won out over KTorrent in the following areas,

1. Speed, in fact it was almost twice as fast on average with one of the torrents.

2. Stalling, this occurred rarely with Deluge,

3. Peer connections, if a peer dropped out, Deluge would attempt and often succeed in connecting to another peer, and not necessarily the same peer. This would also account for the lower rate of stalling.

On the downside though. Deluge in being a little more 'aggressive' affected my browsing performance, as it did under GNOME.

In the end I'll be sticking with KTorrent, as I prefer the feature set, plugin options, and the fact that I can continue to browse unhindered while it is running.

Thank you for providing a good client, with the above issues addressed it will be a great client.

Cheers.