tool used to download packages?

[Derek Broughton]

Andy Harrison wrote:

> On 2/7/07, Joe Hart <j.hart at orange.nl> wrote:
>> I believe you.  I just think it might help.  If you look at your
>> /etc/apt/sources.list file (or look at the repos with adept or synaptic)
>> you should see which sites it's using.  For example, I use:
> 
> I've stuffed a bunch of repositories in there though.  Have a look.
> See anything obvious I can do to improve it?

Do you actually use source packages?  Get rid of all the deb-src entries if
you don't.  Do you use "plf", "medibuntu", etc, etc?  Ditto...

> deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted
> universe multiverse
...
> deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security universe

those are redundant.

> deb  http://repository.debuntu.org/ edgy multiverse

??

> deb http://www.getautomatix.com/apt edgy main

That, in itself, voids your warranty :-) 

> deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu edgy-security main restricted
> universe multiverse

More redundancy - edgy-security is the same set of files, no matter where
your mirror is.  That makes 3 different entries at 2 URLs for
edgy-security/universe.

> deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable non-free

That looks hazardous - you're apparently downloading a package for Debian
and expecting it to work on Ubuntu.  It could...

> deb http://kubuntu.org/packages/kde-356 edgy main
> deb ftp://bolugftp.uni-bonn.de/pub/kde/stable/3.5.6/kubuntu edgy main
> deb http://www.mirrorservice.org/.../stable/3.5.6/kubuntu edgy main 
> deb http://mirror.cc.columbia.edu/.../stable/3.5.6/kubuntu edgy main 

Those look redundant too.

[re changing "dpkg"]

> Lots of room for breakage there, definitely.  But after reading that
> lump of comment from the source code, I'm wondering if I'll have a
> choice.  Sounds like they're experimenting with features to make it
> slightly faster, but at the cost of stability.  I'd rather go back to
> a method that works reliably.

"They" haven't experimented with the apt methods in years, unless they're
making mods that have never been mentioned in the changelogs.  You have a
dogs breakfast for your sources, and you blame the application.
-- 
derek