How To Speed Up Updates and Package Downloads

cypher-neo
   11 years ago
  6

This tutorial describes how to change the server where your computer obtains its updates, package lists, and sources from.

You probably need to do this if:

  • You've noticed that your download speed everywhere else is very high, but your update speed is very low
  • Certain sources fail to download, leaving your computer unable to be updated.

Find Software Sources

To change the server you need to locate the program "Software Sources". This can sometimes be found with a simple menu search, but if you can't find it then follow the steps below.

  • Open your Terminal
  • Depending on what environment you are in determines what program you should load. Cinnamon / MATE users need to run "sudo software-properties-gtk". KDE users should run the command: "sudo software-properties-kde"
  • Enter your password when prompted and press Enter.
  • The Software Sources window will appear.

Selecting the Best Server

When Software Sources loads, you'll notice the window has 3 tabs. We'll be working exclusively on the first tab "LinuxMint Software"

  • You should see several rows of checkboxes for determining which packages are downloadable from the Internet (main, upstream, import, backport, etc...) Below this you will see "Download from:" and a drop-down list next to it.
  • Click on the Download from list and select "Other..."
  • When the "Choose a Download Server" box pops up, click "Select Best Server". It will run a series of tests to determine which server is the best for you to download from.
  • When the tests are done, the server that is best will be selected. Click OK.
  • Now Close the Software Sources window. You will get a message pop-up that says "The information about available software is out-of-date". Click Reload to refresh the sources list.
Comments
gandalf88bis 11 years ago

Nice tutorial. it's very useful and it work very good!

remoulder 11 years ago

There are 2 problems with this tutorial.
Firstly you are using sudo to run graphical applications. This is incorrect, it should be gksudo or gksu. sudo is for command line apps.
Secondly the Select Best Server will only find the best linuxmint mirror, which may not actually help much with the problems you outline at the start. For main (ubuntu based) edition versions, you will also need to optimize the ubuntu mirrors, but you will have to do this manually by editing /etc/apt/sources.list as root though you can generate the lines required at http://repogen.simplylinux.ch/