[Bug 1224229] Re: Suggest to use axel instead of wget in apt-get

[David Kalnischkies]

APT isn't using wget, it uses its own http (1.1) client implementation
to be able to use advanced flags in the request wget and co do not
support (as they are not intended to be used in this way) and
potentially supports features like pipelining (currently disabled by
default though as some dumb mirrors boggle with it).

The "fast" thing about those downloadmanagers can be easily described with an analogy: Imagine a traffic jam: What is better, putting 5 people in one car and driving though the jam or placing one person each in 5 cars and driving though the jam?
Obviously, your 5 cars strategy has a higher throughput – at first: Until everyone drives with 5 cars which means in the end that it is even slower than before as the highway is even more crowded now.

The mirrors aren't slow because they want to annoy you, they are slow because they want to be fair to everyone and serve everyone equally until some idiots come around and think they deserve a bigger share of the pie and trick the system.
We will not support methods to destroy our mirror infrastructure, so its (still) a big NO NO to apt-fast and co (and given how "fast" I found a serious security-hole in it the last time, I seriously wonder how easy it is to get users to download and run random stuff from the internet compromising the whole system – but at least its compromised fast…).

That said, mirrors are far from slow. The key is to use a mirror which
is (network-topology wise) close to you. Infrastructure wise stuff like
mirror://, mirrorbrain, http.debian.net and/or co could be used to
facilitate this, but that isn't something APT can provide.

(The answer is based on Debian experience, but I strongly believe Ubuntu
folks aren't disagreeing. And for the record: With the right mirror [+
pipelining] I can get >8 MB/s [at my university, at home I don't have
that much of bandwidth, but its maxed out]).

** Changed in: apt (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Invalid

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1224229

Title:
  Suggest to use axel instead of wget in apt-get

Status in “apt” package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  Hi

  Could you be able to replace wget by axel or some other faster downloader in apt-get code so that the package downloads are faster. This is an enhancement request only.
  Somebody has done something similarly here though i have not tested it.
  http://blog.sidmitra.com/turbo-charge-apt-get-with-apt-fast

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