[Dapper] package list problems?

[David Hart]

On Sat, Jan 28, 2006 at 12:55:16PM -0500, Darryl Clarke wrote:
> 
> Which brings me to my next questions:
> Is there some sort of reliability requirement for mirrors?  It's a
> pretty big issue when you think of it.  24 updates, most of which are
> 'broken' on one, vs 113 on another is pretty significant when it comes
> to reporting bugs and overall testing efficiency.

Wow!  80% missing updates - they seem to have gone from bad to worse!
I can't understand why it should be like that.  If you are to go to
the trouble and expense of setting up a mirror, surely it can't be
so hard to keep it up to date with rsync?

And I agree, it is a pretty big issue, especially with security
updates on an Internet facing server.
 
> What is the recommended approach to using mirrors?  I typically pick a
> 'near by' one, which I often see recommended, but again if I have to
> switch to fix an issue like this it's a hassle to myself.  Should I
> just list half a dozen mirrors in my sources and hope one works ok?

Listing several mirrors will not get you any benefit and will waste a
load of bandwidth.  When you 'apt-get update', apt will download the
packages files from _all_ mirrors and, when you 'apt-get upgrade',
try to download the latest deb from the first mirror listed in your
sources.list that (says) it has it.  If that mirror happens to be
broken (as in the US mirror) the download will fail (someone please
correct me if I'm wrong).

The best I can suggest is that you have a look at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Archive (which has a few more US mirrors than
the last time I looked) and do a little testing to see which works
the best.

-- 
David Hart <ubuntu at tonix.org>