Should I migrate from Arch due to low repository speeds ?

[MetalheadGautham]

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]

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

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by Pat

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

tell me how

[Pat]

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

[MetalheadGautham]

Tell me a commandline download accelerator that is reliable. Quick.

[Pat]

Yes sir. Your order is my command

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.

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/0...for-linux.html
Read the section: Using Curl to speed up your downloads

[FilledVoid]

Take a PowerPill

[debsuvra]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

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.

^^^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]

^^^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

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]

Originally Posted by FilledVoid

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 .

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]

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.

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.

[nitish_mythology]

Join the bright forces, get 'Zenwalk'....

Hope its not sounding like an advertisement

[4T7]

Originally Posted by nitish_mythology

Join the bright forces, get 'Zenwalk'....

Hope its not sounding like an advertisement

Join the brightest forces, get Slackware

[debsuvra]

Originally Posted by FilledVoid

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.

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.

Originally Posted by nitish_mythology

Join the bright forces, get 'Zenwalk'....

Hope its not sounding like an advertisement

No it is not an advertisement.

Originally Posted by 4T7

Join the brightest forces, get Slackware

Now it starts looking like an advertisement.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by Pat

Yes sir. Your order is my command

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.

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2007/0...for-linux.html
Read the section: Using Curl to speed up your downloads

/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]

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.

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.

[MetalheadGautham]

offtopic: kdemod4 is sooooo damn fast and sexy but where is kde control center ?

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by 4T7

Join the brightest forces, get Slackware

Originally Posted by nitish_mythology

Join the bright forces, get 'Zenwalk'....

Hope its not sounding like an advertisement

Join the bright forces, get FreeBSD.

[debsuvra]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

offtopic: kdemod4 is sooooo damn fast and sexy but where is kde control center ?

hey there are KDEmod4 available ????

Why didn't you tell us ??? I am dying to try it since KDE4.1 has blown my mind in Ubuntu.

[4T7]

Originally Posted by mehulved

Join the bright forces, get FreeBSD.

Already have it

[mehulved]

Originally Posted by debsuvra

Why didn't you tell us ??? I am dying to try it since KDE4.1 has blown my mind in Ubuntu.

Filled-Void already did that in another thread. I have been using KDEmod 4.1 since then. The only reason I am using arch.

[Faun]

migration...ahem...ahem !

[shady_inc]

Originally Posted by MetalheadGautham

offtopic: kdemod4 is sooooo damn fast and sexy but where is kde control center ?

In what way is it better than KDE 4.1.?

[QwertyManiac]

KControlCenter is now System Settings (systemsettings)

[MetalheadGautham]

System Settings sucks. I wonder why they brought in that ugly app from Kubuntu.
I really miss KControlCenter.
And how can I switch to root mode for certain operations ?

[aditya.shevade]

LOLOLOL... Use Pacific.au mirror.... It is fast.

[mehulved]

For me, http://mir.archlinux.fr is the fastest. Maybe it's cause I am on a different ISP.

[MetalheadGautham]

Originally Posted by aditya.shevade

LOLOLOL... Use Pacific.au mirror.... It is fast.

Originally Posted by mehulved

For me, http://mir.archlinux.fr is the fastest. Maybe it's cause I am on a different ISP.

I will find out the truth tonight.

Tonight is the night for some hectic downloading. I need to get CentOS 5.2 DVD ISO for testing purposes on my extra partition.

Along with that, I will download lots of software via pacman.

[FilledVoid]

Did any of you actually try Powerpill?

[gary4gar]

Yep, its fastest of the whole lot, but still not upto the mark. i get around 60kBps.
anyways, now i have a fully set up machine to i don't need to download much.

i am on KDE3.xx and if upgrade to KDE4.1. how much i have to download?