If you've been using the Internet for more than a week, I'm sure you've already downloaded dozens of files to your PC. Today's web browsers makes the task of downloading files over the Net fairly easy. However, there's a tool that makes the process even easier. It's a little known application called KGet.

KGet is part of the KDE desktop system. If you're running Kanotix already, you most likely have it already installed. In fact, if you're browsing the Net with Konqueror, you probably already see it on your toolbar. If you don't use Konqueror to browse the Web, you can launch KGet by clicking on your K-Launcher button and choose from the menu, Internet -> Download Manager (KGet).

For Konqueror users, this is a screenshot of my Konqueror web browser, showing the location of the KGet icon button.

Click on the Icon and choose the menu selection, Show Drop Target. This will produce a dockable application icon, which you can anchor somewhere on your desktop. KGet is now ready and waiting to handle all of your downloading tasks.

The thing about letting KGet handle the downloading of files for you, rather than using the download manager installed with your reguar browser, is that it frees up your web browser so you can continue to browse the Net without any loss in speed. KGet also has the capabilities of scheduling download tasks. This may not be too critical for those of us on high speed Internet connections, but is a powerful tool for those still on dial-up. More on this feature later.

First, let's simply download a file from the Internet to our hard drive.

I navigated my web browser to the Epitonic web site and began to search for some new MP3s to add to my music collection. I came across a tune I liked and now want to download it to my PC. To do this, I simply click and hold my mouse cursor over the link to the MP3 file, then drag the mouse over to the KGet target icon and release my mouse button.

My MP3 is now being downloaded to my hard drive. Double click on the KGet target icon and you'll be presented with the job status window, which looks like this...

This is your central control to all of KGet's wonderful features. In the image above, you'll see some useful information being presented to you, including file names, precent complete, file size, rate of download, remaining download time and source URL.

This is a simple, straight forward download job. You can keep dragging files into KGet, adding them to your que. But there's more to KGet than this.

Let's say that I'm not just downloading MP3s, but perhaps images from an on-line photo album as well. Although I could download everything to one holding directory to sort out later, I could also tell KGet where to put certain file types at the time of download and save myself some work in the end.

To do this, in the status window shown above, I click on Settings -> Configure KGet.... Once I get the configuration menu up, I click on the Folders tab. This will give me a window that looks like this:

In the example above, you'll see that I have a few rules set into place. One of them being that any file (referred to here with the use of a *) ending with .mp3 will be stored in my /home/David/Music directory. I also have a rule that all files ending in .jpg are to be stored in my /home/David/Pictures directory. You can add as many of these rules as you wish by simply identifying a file extension in the Extension: field, then specifying a folder to store them in the Default Directory field. KGet will then follow these rules when you drag and drop files over the target icon, anchored to your desktop.

But this isn't the only way you can tell KGet what files you want it to download. Let's say you're at the office and you come across a list of PDF files you'd like to download on your home PC and read at a later time. Simply create yourself a .txt file that lists the URLs to the location of the PDFs you wish to download. Then, e-mail the .txt file to your home account.

Once you get home, retrieve your e-mail and save your .txt file to your home directory. Now, start up KGet and open up the status window. From the menu, select File -> Import Text File.... Select the .txt file you just saved to your hard drive. KGet will now load that list of URLs into itself and begin downloading the files you've specified.

You can also drag and drop URL locations right from your e-mail reader itself. Someone sends you a link to a file they wish you to have, simply drag and drop the link from the e-mail to the KGet target icon.

If there are a list of documents that you download regularily from the net (like documents from your office's FTP client), you can store this list of files to be automatically re-downloaded at a later time. Under the menu option File, you would use Export transfer list... to save the documents currently in your que, and use Import transfer list... to recall the list at any time.

For dial-up users, the KGet scheduling feature should prove to be very useful. From the status window, take KGet off-line by clicking on the icon of the Globe. KGet is now off-line and will not start to download the files you drag and drop to it's target icon until instructed to do so. Go about your web browsing and add the files you wish to download to the KGet que as you normally would.

Once you're done your browsing, you can start downloading immediately (by clicking on the Plug icon, which replaced the Globe when you first clicked on it), or you can schedule the downloading of the files to a later time. Double click on one of the files in your que. In the window that appears, click on the Advanced button in the bottom right corner. Here is where you specify to KGet when you want it to download the file.

Put KGet back on-line (by clicking on the Plug icon that replaced the Globe icon when you first clicked on it) and it will download when the appropriate time is reached.

If, for some reason, your Internet connection is lost, KGet will remember where it left off and resume when the connection is restored.

I hope this brief tutorial gives you some great ideas as to how to get KGet working for you as you surf the Net.