download speed

[Mikus Grinbergs]

On Fri, 8 Sep 2006 07:34:20 -0700 linux_learner <linux.learner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Downloads shouldn't stall if you add mirrors.

For myself, I have encountered three hurdles with that idea:

 -  At least once, when I requested an install of my current
    kernel's source code, I noticed that the package manager
    was downloading that same package TWICE simultaneously -
    once from the principal repository and once from a mirror.
    That cut my slow dial-up line's effective transfer capacity
    in half, causing that occasion's download to take several
    hours longer.  Not something I appreciated.

 -  Excuse me for being stupid, but I simply do not know how
    to find mirrors.  I'm using smart for SuSE.  SuSE used to
    have all the principal repositories (that I was interested
    in) in one place, all in "apt" format.  I could look there
    with a browser, and identify what the repositories were.

    Now the repositories for SuSE are scattered around in
    various countries -- and I have not found any guide that I
    can understand that will tell me how to locate them, nor
    how to identify what their individual formats are.

 -  At the very least, smart goes out and downloads the indexes
    of the repositories it has been told about (including from
    the mirror sites).  With SuSE 9.x and previous, I could
    issue 'apt-get update' and it would typically complete in
    less than 15 minutes.  Nowadays, with 'smart', I'm lucky
    if an 'update' finishes in less than 45 minutes.  I believe
    the newer repositories are not compressing their indexes,
    and that the smart packages for SuSE have added some mirrors.

    [BTW, on Ubuntu, synaptic's 'reload' is normally taking me
    about three minutes total to access the indexes from 50+
    repositories/mirrors (using that same slow dial-up line!).
    I think for Ubuntu, synaptic only needs to fetch deltas.]

mikus