[SOLVED] How to speed up Software Manager package download?

[MarkLaw19]

Hello to all,

Just as the question asked, is there any way to improve the download speed of Software Manager and Update Manager? My internet connection was fast and my download speed for FlashGet for Linux was fast, around 300KB/s but then the Software Manager was insanely slow, like 20KB/s. So i was thinking is there any way to speed up these downloads?

[xenopeek]

Yes you can, you can choose a download mirror in your country (closer to you) instead of using the default download server. To do so for the Linux Mint software:
1. open Software Sources application
2. from the "Download from:" selection box choose "Other..."
3. pick a server by hand from your country, or click the "Select Best Server" button and wait while it determines the best server and highlights that for you
4. click the "Choose Server" button to confirm

You probably also want to do this for the Ubuntu software, as that accounts for the majority of your downloading. This is a little more involved, and requires you to edit your sources.list. Neat thing is that since Linux Mint 11, you can have it set up so it will find a mirror near you automatically. This doesn't work for all repositories, so for some you will have to look at their website if they have a list of mirrors and change your sources.list manually to directly point at a mirror near you.

Easiest to do this with a few commands from the terminal. First make a backup (always do that when messing with system files!):

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sudo cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list$(date +'%F-%H%M%S')

Then edit your sources.list. On Cinnamon:

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gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Or on MATE:

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gksudo pluma /etc/apt/sources.list

Below the changes as you need to make them for Linux Mint 13. If you are using Linux Mint 12, replace the word "precise" with "oneiric" on each line. Or for Linux Mint 11 "natty". Find the following three lines:

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deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security main restricted universe multiverse

Replace them with:

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deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise-security main restricted universe multiverse

That is how I do it, but I'm interested in how other are doing this

[MarkLaw19]

Thanks, i do get the Ubuntu download speed improved but I'm not sure about the LinuxMint softwares, but then when i tried to update my computer using Update Manager, i got an error saying Failed to fetch packages from deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt precise main restricted universe multiverse, so what could be the problem here? Can you find me the mirrors for the software packaged by Canonical partners? I don't know where to find it.

[xenopeek]

Some users are have the same issue, an are noting that the mirror is chosen based on your geographic location and the list of mirrors might not be fully up to date. Apparently it sometimes happens that you get the failure, either because the mirror that is geographically closest to you is not longer active and the mirrors list has not be updated yet, or because it is overloaded (mirrors for Ubuntu can be mirrors for other projects as well).

Though it has been working fine for me, if you have this issue you may be better of configuring which mirror to use directly instead of using the mirrors.txt link to do that for you. https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors

I'm sure about mirrors for the partner repository...

While searching for an answer to that, I ran into apt-fast. apt-fast is a wrapper for apt-get, so you can only use it from the command prompt. It accelerates downloads by fetching concurrently from multiple servers, instead of from just one server. Advertised as 32x times faster. Might be worth a look
http://www.mattparnell.com/projects/apt ... rades.html

[MarkLaw19]

Thanks, now there is no need for me to change the update servers. I'll just use apt-fast to install packages. Just one more question though, if i use 'apt-fast upgrade', will it be the same as using Update Manager installing all updates? Cause i want to update my system using this apt-fast as well.

[xenopeek]

Well, the apt-fast website says it implements all the commands the same way as apt-get. Only that the apt-fast script does downloads in parallel from multiple sources. So I think "apt-fast upgrade" does the same, as "apt-get upgrade" also does the same as the Update Manager.

[MarkLaw19]

Thanks, after i did 'sudo apt-fast upgrade', i checked my Update Manager, and my computer was already up to date. Thanks again for all your assistance Vincent, really appreciate it..