Oh, please, please, COME ON Ubuntu development people!

[Basil Chupin]

I installed Ubuntu Beta #1 a day ago or so.

This morning Ms Kate Stewart informed me that Beta #2 was released. Fine 
- been waiting for it; so I go and download the CD. Took the normal 1 
1/2 hours; not a problem, really - all done while I was out getting the 
DVD of the release of Part1 of the final Harry Potter movie.

Then I started the installation of Beta #2 and was asked if this was a 
new installation or simply an upgrade to the earlier version (Beta #1).

I chose the latter: the upgrade to an existing installation of Natty.

And then the wheels fell off...... :'( .

After 5 hours of "upgrading" an existing installation of Natty I hit the 
POWER OFF/SHUTDOWN button.....

Why did I do this, you ask?

Well, 5 hours of sitting here and looking at the screen with Ubuntu's 
Natty Beta #2 showing me that it is, firstly, "Installing" files - fine, 
no problem with this, but.. - and then "Restoring previously installed 
packages" (if they are already installed why the f**** then DOWNLOAD the 
damn things!?) at a download rate which makes a drunk snail high on 
snail-killer bait look positively faster then a speeding bullet! I just 
had to hit the computer's SHUTDOWN button.

A few days ago I downloaded and installed another distro (openSUSE if 
you are interested). The whole operation took a frection of the time I 
just spent with Beta #2. Why? Because that distro is using a 
"something-Brain" which selects the most efficient local to you mirror 
to grab all the necessary files.

The way my modem lights were looking showed that the download speed of 
whatever files Natty Beta #2 was downloading was in the vicinity of 
anywhere between <1KB/s to 10KB/s .  (How do I know this? because I have 
seen this speed when downloading files from the normal Ubuntu server 
before I selected/switched to my bestest local server in the 
Repositories settings.)

While this may be "rant" to many people, this really is NOT a laughing 
matter.

Once you have selected the option to install Ubuntu there is no way to 
halt/stop/resume the process - nor is there to select the most efficient 
download source. When using the other distro (openSUSE) one also had the 
option to use SMART which could be stopped if you didn't like the 
download rate, wait for a while, and then resume in which case there was 
a very strong probability of getting a betting download rate. Not just 
speculation but fact as I experienced this often.

Time to sort this out, Ubuntu!

BC

-- 
Great Man reaches complete understanding of the main issues; Petty Man reaches complete understanding of the minute details."

                                              Confucius