[arch-general] Repository download speed? Any way to improve?

[David Rosenstrauch]

David C. Rankin wrote:
> Listmates,
> 
> 	After my initial install, loading packages from core, extra and community I
> was limited to an average of 58K downstream bandwidth. for kdemod-legacy (and
> normally) I see the full 136K that my pitiful 1M down provides. Currently I
> have the repositories defined in pacman.conf in the default manner:
> 
> [core]
> Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
> [extra]
> Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
> [community]
> Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
> 
> 	Do I need to specify individual mirrors that would work better for my location
> in TX? If so, where can I get a list that will let me see the closest ones? Thanks.
> 
> P.S. I apologize for the rapid-fire questions, I'm just trying to make friends
> with Arch. The questions will taper off soon.

The mirrorlist file that you see reference 3 times in the pacman.conf is 
telling pacman which mirror to use.  IIRC, by default the mirror list 
points to the main arch site, but that site intentionally has bandwidth 
limitations placed on it in order to encourage people's use of the 
mirror sites.  So edit the mirror list making a different mirror have 
higher priority (i.e., appearing earlier in the file) and that should 
solve the problem.

For example, my mirrorlist file lists a load of mirrors, all commented 
out.  Then at the end of the file I added:

Server = http://mirror.rit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/x86_64
Server = http://archlinux.unixheads.org/$repo/os/x86_64
Server = http://mirrors.easynews.com/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/x86_64

HTH,

DR