Blockchain download in Ubuntu 12.04 horrendous

[JackH]

I am in my 12th hour of downloading the blockchain on a Ubuntu 12.04

So far, at this very moment, 156430 blocks downloaded, out of the total 281.000+

On my windows, this used to take 2-3 hours, and then it would start to slow down dramatically when reaching the 200.000+ blocks.

Now I can only fear what those 200.000+ blocks will take, if the first blocks have been this extra ordinarily slow. I am talking 12 hours, continuous downloads here, with 8 peer connections.

Am I the one doing something wrong? Do I need to open ports to make sure I get the blocks easier? Its just becoming a bit too extreme, and I foresee it will take 1+ week to get this over with.

Now I dont want to hear that there are alternative clients, I know that. If anyone has a solution to this matter, it would be great to know. What I would like to know the most is however why the difference between Windows and Ubuntu is this high. Its the same internet, same amount of connections to peers and same version of Bitcoin (v0.8.6.0-g03a7d67-beta).

[GoldenWings91]

You can downloads most of the blockchain as a torrent: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.160

[theymos]

Are you using the most recent version of Bitcoin-Qt? Older versions are much slower.

[Shahrukh]

I have a database(of bitcoin) update till 280000 block if you want that I can share. It took me 36 hours to download blockchain of dogecoin on my windows with 7.2 Mbps connection

[Colin Miner]

I am in my 12th hour of downloading the blockchain on a Ubuntu 12.04

Same here with 20 connetions, ubuntu, SSD and 40Gb FTTC

I think getting even more connections will helped but they took a while to propagate, got 72 connections now that its finally downloaded.

Check your ports are forwarded for 8333 to your ubuntus IP

[Lucky Cris]

You can downloads most of the blockchain as a torrent: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.160

Seriously? I wouldn't trust this if someone paid me!

[michagogo]

You can downloads most of the blockchain as a torrent: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.160

Seriously? I wouldn't trust this if someone paid me!

For one, this is created and endorsed by Jeff Garzik, a well-known member of the community and a Bitcoin Core developer. However, that doesn't matter -- using the bootstrap.dat torrent doesn't require any trust whatsoever. The Bitcoin software imports the blocks from the file, but it validates them first, treating them the same way it would if they came over the Bitcoin network.

[BookLover]

You can transfer the blockchain from your Windows pc to Ubuntu.  Just copy the "blocks" and "chainstate" folders from their respective Bitcoin directories.

What are your computers specs?  If your Windows pc has a SSD and/or other hardware advantages it would cause this kind of difference in sync speed.  I synced bitcoin-qt on Linux Mint (it has a RAID array) and it finished a whole lot faster then my windows pc (laptop hdd).

[MrScrotes]

I run ubuntu 12.04, 13.04 and win7 and the speed is about the same in all 3. Bitcoin-qt may-be even faster with Ubuntu.

It is possible your hdd are inadvertently using crap and default settings ?
google speed testst the full speed 50mb/s. Unfortunately it was so long ago 'some command' and 'dd' is all i remember sorry.

[MrScrotes]

After thinking for a few minutes, it was "hdparm" that increased the speed and performance testing.
Be very careful if you play with hdparm or dd. They can easily kill your data.

You are not running ubuntu as a vmware guest, right ?