Errors trying to upgrade from GG to HH Ubuntu.

[Daniel Mons]

==============Sebastian Spiess wrote:

> I did a clean install and everything went smooth but when I started installing all the stuff missing I had problems with 
> the AU mirror as well. I ended up switching quite often, but this could have something to do with the "others" upgrading... 
> good to hear that it worked for you.
> 
> I am now back to the AU mirror, all is fine so far. keep the traffic on the continent :-)

Some general comments on APT mirrors, ISPs, and sources.list config from 
a Debian veteran of 7 years, and an Ubuntu user for 2 years now:

au.archive.ubunut.com is hosted by Optus:

dan at bnenb007:~$ dig au.archive.ubuntu.com
*snip*
;; ANSWER SECTION:
au.archive.ubuntu.com.	600	IN	CNAME	mirror.optus.net.
mirror.optus.net.	86400	IN	A	211.29.132.173

Now I don't intend this to be a "crap on Optus" session.  Optus 
generously host Ubuntu's au mirror as well as the primary au mirror for 
sourceforge.  But the fact of the matter is the mirrors are slow to 
respond, and seem to be heavily QoS'ed.  I completely understand why 
they do this, but sadly it makes for random brokenness when doing upgrades.

In particular, the two weeks before, and up to a month after any Ubuntu 
release see these mirrors get hammered.  I honestly don't think the 
world understands just how popular Ubuntu is right now. :)

My advice is to keep your mirrors pointed to your local ISP if possible.

For example, I'm with iiNet, and my /etc/apt/sources.list looks like (4 
lines, each one long line - ignore the line break enforced by email):

deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu hardy main multiverse restricted 
universe
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu hardy-updates main multiverse 
restricted universe
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu hardy-backports main multiverse 
restricted universe
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu hardy-security main multiverse 
restricted universe

So there's deb repos for hardy, hardy-updates, hardy-backports 
(optional), and hardy-security for the main, multiverse, universe and 
restricted sections.

Many ISPs provide mirrors.  Internode are another I have regular 
dealings with that provide full Ubuntu mirrors.  If you are on any one 
of the PIPE Networks ISPs, PIPE host their Pacific Mirror site, which 
can be accessed free of charge (ie: not counting towards quota) for PIPE 
users (iiNet, Internode, Westnet, AAPT, Swiftel, and many others):

deb http://mirror.pacific.net.au/linux/ubuntu hardy main universe 
multiverse restricted

... and so on for the other repos.

If in doubt, ring your ISP and ask.  It's within the best interests of 
an ISP to host local mirrors of heavily used traffic.  It saves them 
money, and means they can deliver a high quality of service to their 
customers.  For you as a user, it means being able to perform mass 
upgrades for convenience and/or security without eating into your 
monthly download quota or getting dreaded "404 not found" errors.

Remember too that you can have multiple mirrors in your sources.list, 
which will be tried in order.  Put your own ISP at the top of the list, 
and au.archive at the bottom of the list.  If your ISP is slow to update 
and is missing a package, APT will fall back to au.archive.  There's no 
rule saying you must only have one mirror in your list.  The only 
downside is that running an "apt-get update" (package refresh) can take 
a while if you have a long sources.list, but it's a small price to pay 
to ensure you get the packages you need during an normal package 
upgrade, or during an entire distro upgrade.

-Dan