Why do I only see repositories from Britain & New Zealand?

[Unclefred]

Hello,
I'm in Nova Scotia Canada and when I go to the repositories I don't see any repositories in my part of the world. Only a limited number of repositories from New Zealand & Britain. Always before I had Canadian repositories and a wide range of countries to choose from. It seems very strange to me.

[KMD2023]

Hello,
I'm in Nova Scotia Canada and when I go to the repositories I don't see any repositories in my part of the world. Only a limited number of repositories from New Zealand & Britain. Always before I had Canadian repositories and a wide range of countries to choose from. It seems very strange to me.

Unclefred,

Are you perhaps using a VPN? If so, you could try stopping the VPN and refreshing the repos list to see if more options appear.

That's really the only thing I can think of. Maybe others will chime in later.

[Unclefred]

I remember clicking on a VPN once, but I never chose a service and I've never been billed for a service. Some store locators put me in Toronto, but I've always assumed that it's because that's where my web site hosting service is located. That would tend to indicate that I don't have a service, because they can detect that. I used to have no trouble with local repositories now I seem to be barred from even looking for one.

[karlchen]

Hello, Unclefred.

The reason might be similar to the one mentioned in that thread, [SOLVED} What's happened to the UK Software Mirrors?: geoip service interfering in an incorrect way.

Karl

[Unclefred]

Thanks. I'm going to check that out in the morning. I'm too tired now. I wonder if I am using the wrong set of mail servers. I'll try that in the morning. there is another set I could be using.

[Unclefred]

OK, I saw the line about the software mirrors and there seemed to be a fix involving manually changing the <admin:///etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list> It seems similar, but different from mine. It took a couple of tried to open the editor in "Sudo" mode, and before I did that I wasn't sure what to put, because the advice said to put "nl." into the location line, and I wanted Canada, so would that be "ca." ???

Why do we have this problem in the first place? It's starting to be a problem beyond the repositories. I went to see about renting a car from Budget, and was told I could reserve one only by going to the Budget sites in Australia or New Zealand.

[SMG]

OK, I saw the line about the software mirrors and there seemed to be a fix involving manually changing the <admin:///etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list> It seems similar, but different from mine. It took a couple of tried to open the editor in "Sudo" mode, and before I did that I wasn't sure what to put, because the advice said to put "nl." into the location line, and I wanted Canada, so would that be "ca." ???

Here is another topic [SOLVED] Software Sources Restricted to just North and South American Mirrors where the person wanted mirrors in the Philippines. Please check this post and the next for what they did. I would guess you would want 'CA', but I don't know that for sure.

Why do we have this problem in the first place?

As stated in the other topic, "Software Sources only shows mirrors from your and neighboring / close by countries. It uses Ubuntu's geoip service to find your country. Possibly the service is not reporting the correct country for your IP address."

I don't know why that would cause an issue with Budget rent-a-car.

[Unclefred]

I think maybe a re-install of Mint would be appropriate. I'm using 21.3 I think. It seems to work for a while, but then reverts back to Australia for some reason. I had a similar / the same problem with 21.2. I am in Nova Scotia, Canada.

[SMG]

I think maybe a re-install of Mint would be appropriate.

It's your choice whether to re-install, but I do not know of a reason that might help with this issue. I believe the file must be changed to get the results you want.

[Unclefred]

A reinstall won't be necessary. I was offline a while ago and found I could select the local mirrors, and the first time I went back online it wouldn't connect to any of them. I got an error message, I seem to remember. No matter the next day I did it again; I loaded the Canadians mirrors that I wanted, while offline, and than out of pure stubbornness I went online again and this time everything worked. I don't know why, but the problem just seems to have corrected itself. maybe a software guru has modified something. Whatever it is, I'm very greatful.

[RollyShed]

Only a limited number of repositories from New Zealand & Britain.

One of the NZ repositories is Canterbury University where Ernest Rutherford did his degree and where I worked, both of us in the Chemistry Department. Note, almost 100 years apart.

Ernest Rutherford left Canterbury College, New Zealand, with three degrees in 1895. He moved to Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, England.
Nobel Laureate, Ernest Rutherford, became known as ‘the father of the atom’ for his discovery of atomic structure.

Anything to do with Linux? Well actually not a great deal.

[Unclefred]

OK, we're off topic, but didn't he do his experiments at McGill University in Montreal. Firing electrons through gold foil? I seem to remember.(?)

[RollyShed]

OK, we're off topic, but didn't he do his experiments at McGill University in Montreal. Firing electrons through gold foil? I seem to remember.(?)

Yes, that's where he next went to.

[Unclefred]

I was born in Montreal so I learned something of that many years ago. It's all fading into the past now. I'm 73, 74 next month. All the best to you.