I am new to Ubuntu and using 14.04.2. I am finding apt-get downloads extremely slow. Most are coming from security.ubuntu.com or us.archive.ubuntu.com. I am only getting download speeds from 5 to 12 kB/s which is only 2% of my network speed. And for pkgs with dependent pkgs, the reconnect for each new package often takes several minutes. Just doing apt-get upgrade took around 10 hours. Is this normal? Are the servers slow or so busy? I found yum with RedHat much faster.
5 Answers
It seems to be a problem with the sources. Go to
System Settings -> Software & Updates -> Download from -> Select best server
For more additional details, refer this thread.
In my case, I had set a bandwidth limit in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades
:
// Use apt bandwidth limit feature, this example limits the download
// speed to 70kb/sec
Acquire::http::Dl-Limit "70";
(I wasn't expecting this to affect my "attended upgrades" also..)
As soon as I commented out this line, apt install
went much faster.
The apt-fast package can be installed in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu by adding the apt-fast/stable PPA to your software sources and installing it using these commands.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:apt-fast/stable
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install apt-fast
During the apt-fast installation process, you will be prompted to perform some package configuration. After successfully installing apt-fast, simply use it the same way you run apt or apt-get.
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1Interesting solution, it's a shame that it requires to run apt-get update which is the broken thing that we are attempting to fix.– matteoDec 15, 2019 at 12:32
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@matteo I don't think you do. if you use
-u
onadd-apt-repository
, so it all becomessudo add-apt-repository -u ppa:apt-fast/stable && sudo apt -y install apt-fast
Nov 24, 2020 at 13:04
This is added late, current os 20.04 focal, had a few weeks of having to wait 3 or more minutes at the end of apt-get update
for some unknown cause. I struggled with trying to find a fix via search engine. Somehow I came across an article about snap and complaint that it took too much time.
I found this at https://cialu.net/a-better-ubuntu-linux-without-the-crappy-snap/
I ran the following:
$ sudo apt autoremove --purge snapd gnome-software-plugin-snap
I was worried about all the removals, but apt-get update runs like it used to. Question: Is snap a cloud based thing? ( that would explain the time delay )
For me a fake sd card from amazon was the problem... Was supposed to be 64Gb but was actually 4GB. TBF amazon accepted return. Having popped to Argos and bought a 64GB card for 10 quid its working fine and ubuntu now runs acceptably.
/etc/apt/sources.list
or change it using a graphical package manager (synaptic
has a tool to do this, in settings/repositories menu).