hi, i've been trying to update my apt sources list for the past hour or so, trying out different sources since it always happens to me that when i try to install a package, i'm getting intermittent download speeds. it would start out at 50 kb/s then slow down to zero, stays that way for 3 minutes, then picks up again for about 3 seconds, and slows down again.

i don't think my internet is an issue, as whenever the download slows to zero, i try to see my if internet's still alive and kicking by going to web sites, and it does work.

so where could the problem be? the repository? i've tried just different repos ranging from the usuals like the us.debian.org to the less-popular ones i got through apt-spy, and it's all the same.

might it be because there's some tinkering that needs to be done via the command line or something?

or could it just be that my connection is being pre-empted by others using connections with greater bandwidth (T1 et al)?

i really have no idea what's the problem here, i've jumped from ubuntu primarily because of apt-get issues and yet i still get it from debian. please help me, i really wanna get debian sid to work well. i'm enjoying it aside from the fact that 1 and a half hours in and i still haven't installed some of my fave apps due to download speed problems. any suggestions or tips would be welcome. thanks!

I would say it would be the repositiory site unless both distros are using the exact same link. If downloading sevrel packages from different repo sites then some repo sites are slower than others. Also there are limit to number of logins to some repos so you may be able to get two files at the same time from the same site faster than getting 3 files from a site that allows 3 connection limit. They may even do bandwidth limiting as well.

Brian1

Post your sources.list and you country location so people can point you to the better repos.

You might want to to:
"Deciding which mirror is the best to include in the sources.list file: netselect, netselect-apt"
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap...ml#s-netselect

thanks for the replies!

i'm from the philippines. the netselect utility gave me a mirror that's either non-existent or offline (not sure which one is it, but what i'm sure of is that synaptic can't update the package list). i then reverted to using one of the main repos (i used one in australia). it gave me marginally better results, though it's a far cry from what i used to have in the past. maybe the linux community is simply growing, which is good, though i hope some rich benefactor would donate more servers/bendwidth to the community.

I use one of the Australia repos and it has been slow this week. There may be some problems down under.

I use: deb http://ftp.wa.au.debian.org/debian/

Slow slow slow: Average 2-9Kb/s instead of a normal 100Kb/s