Should I migrate from Arch due to low repository speeds ?

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MetalheadGautham

MetalheadGautham

AFK
I have been using arch linux for some time now and I find it to be one of the best distros ever. Its very simple and easy to use, and configuring is very easy since only a handful of text files need to be edited. KDEmod simply rocks.

But I have one major issue with it - its repositories are simply too slow. I am not able to download anything at all during the night time UL BSNL H500 broadband surfing from the repos, since I get sick speeds like 15kbps. But at noon and evening, I get blazing fast download speeds, which are useless since I can't use that time for downloading anything. Rankmirrors script revealed that the fastest mirror I can access is also just 16kbps in speed right now. I don't know what to do now. Can anyone help and/or advice me here ?

Is there any hack for pacman to make it download files in paralell, i.e, many files at a time ? Or can I somehow make wget, which pacman uses, to accelerate downloads ?

I really don't want to leave arch and KDEmod, but I think I am being forced to, by slow speeds. I am considering going for CentOS 5.2, whose DVD I am downloading from internode.net. What do you guys say ? What will be the speed difference between CentOS and arch ? What about the new debian testing release ?
 
Pat

Pat

Beyond Smart
pacman does not use wget by default. And yes, you can use a download accelerator of your choice with pacman (axel for example)
 
Pat

Pat

Beyond Smart
Please see your pacman.conf. IIRC, they have given a few examples as comments in that file.
 
Pat

Pat

Beyond Smart
Yes sir. Your order is my command :rolleyes:

Try axel (as already mentioned in previous post) or prozilla.

Also try out curl as mentioned in the following blog article. It will be useful especially when downloading large files like, for example, distro isos.

*linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/03/tip-download-accelerator-for-linux.html
Read the section: Using Curl to speed up your downloads
 
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debsuvra

debsuvra

is NOT a PC/Mac
MetalheadGautham said:
But I have one major issue with it - its repositories are simply too slow. I am not able to download anything at all during the night time UL BSNL H500 broadband surfing from the repos, since I get sick speeds like 15kbps. But at noon and evening, I get blazing fast download speeds, which are useless since I can't use that time for downloading anything. Rankmirrors script revealed that the fastest mirror I can access is also just 16kbps in speed right now. I don't know what to do now.
Click to expand...

^^^Thats why I had to ditch Arch and switch over to slower Ubuntu 8.04.1 again.

I think BSNL is slowing down the speed sometimes in the night unlimited hours since I saw some other users in the vicinity were getting good speeds over the same mirror using Airtel. Can someone confirm it ?
 
FilledVoid

FilledVoid

Who stole my Alpaca!
^^^Thats why I had to ditch Arch and switch over to slower Ubuntu 8.04.1 again.

I think BSNL is slowing down the speed sometimes in the night unlimited hours since I saw some other users in the vicinity were getting good speeds over the same mirror using Airtel. Can someone confirm it
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I get awesome speeds to the morning and about upto 50-80 kbps in the regular times. I usually schedule updates at 7:00 am -8:00 and have my system shutdown at 7:55 .
 
debsuvra

debsuvra

is NOT a PC/Mac
FilledVoid said:
I get awesome speeds to the morning and about upto 50-80 kbps in the regular times. I usually schedule updates at 7:00 am -8:00 and have my system shutdown at 7:55 .
Click to expand...

Are u using Home 500 man ? If yes, then u call 50-80 kbps awesome ? Arch repos give at least 180-200 kbps in other times of the day but in that hourspan, it's horrible. I also experienced the slightly better speeds from 7 to 8 AM but that is not close enough to the speed we should have. :(
 
FilledVoid

FilledVoid

Who stole my Alpaca!
Are u using Home 500 man ? If yes, then u call 50-80 kbps awesome ? Arch repos give at least 180-200 kbps in other times of the day but in that hourspan, it's horrible. I also experienced the slightly better speeds from 7 to 8 AM but that is not close enough to the speed we should have.
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Yes I'm using Home 500. Yes I call it Awesome because of couple of things.

1. Arch doesn't have a server anywhere close to us.
2. If you notice the time difference theres going to be more traffic in the night than the morning.
3. On Ubuntu the download speeds were so pathetic from IIT that I started downloading updates from Mongolia.

You might find it horrible but I find it suitable for my needs.
 
debsuvra

debsuvra

is NOT a PC/Mac
FilledVoid said:
Yes I'm using Home 500. Yes I call it Awesome because of couple of things.

1. Arch doesn't have a server anywhere close to us.
2. If you notice the time difference theres going to be more traffic in the night than the morning.
3. On Ubuntu the download speeds were so pathetic from IIT that I started downloading updates from Mongolia.

You might find it horrible but I find it suitable for my needs.
Click to expand...

But I got some 180-200 kbps speed from arch Australia servers, so why 50-80 would be amazing ?

On the other hand, Taiwanese ubuntu servers are the best I've seen in many days for Ubuntu. I presume praka can also confirm it. The IIT-M repo simply sucks. :x

nitish_mythology said:
Join the bright forces, get 'Zenwalk'....

Hope its not sounding like an advertisement :D
Click to expand...

No it is not an advertisement.

4T7 said:
Join the brightest forces, get Slackware :D
Click to expand...

Now it starts looking like an advertisement. :D
 
OP
MetalheadGautham

MetalheadGautham

AFK
Pat said:
Yes sir. Your order is my command :rolleyes:

Try axel (as already mentioned in previous post) or prozilla.

Also try out curl as mentioned in the following blog article. It will be useful especially when downloading large files like, for example, distro isos.

*linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/03/tip-download-accelerator-for-linux.html
Read the section: Using Curl to speed up your downloads
Click to expand...
/me heard lots about curl and even used it in firefox via flashgot extention.
I heard its wget's arch rival. is it really that good ?
 
FilledVoid

FilledVoid

Who stole my Alpaca!
But I got some 180-200 kbps speed from arch Australia servers, so why 50-80 would be amazing ?

On the other hand, Taiwanese ubuntu servers are the best I've seen in many days for Ubuntu. I presume praka can also confirm it. The IIT-M repo simply sucks.
Click to expand...

I was mentioning that I get 50-80 in most times regardless of where or when. Hence its great for me. I also get good speeds in the times mentioned above by OP. I believe I did a 8 MB update today and the average at the end was about 192 kbps but this was at 8:00 am I believe.

Anyway Ive had the best experience with Pacman then with Ubuntus update system. I don't see myself changing anytime soon.
 
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