16

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.

Terry L Anderson
  • 381
  • 1
  • 3
  • 11
  • 1
    I used Debian, and have not seen these problems. If it is the servers, then changing to a more local mirror may help: find out how to edit `/etc/apt/sources.list` or change it using a graphical package manager (`synaptic` has a tool to do this, in settings/repositories menu). – ctrl-alt-delor Jul 24 '15 at 22:04
  • happened today, download speeds dropped to 125Bps (no, the k is not missing). Resetting the router fixed it for me. – linuxUser123 Jun 16 '21 at 21:46

5 Answers5

15

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.

Community
  • 1
Sachith Muhandiram
  • 624
  • 1
  • 8
  • 19
4

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.

mwfearnley
  • 7,172
  • 5
  • 26
  • 38
3

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.

karel
  • 13,390
  • 26
  • 45
  • 52
Niel
  • 31
  • 1
  • I noticed that your PPA isn't supported past Ubuntu 16.04, so I substituted the more up-to-date ppa:apt-fast/stable. You can rollback my edit if you want to by clicking the rollback link [here](https://superuser.com/posts/1416864/revisions). – karel Mar 24 '19 at 08:47
  • 1
    Interesting solution, it's a shame that it requires to run apt-get update which is the broken thing that we are attempting to fix. – matteo Dec 15 '19 at 12:32
  • @matteo I don't think you do. if you use `-u` on `add-apt-repository`, so it all becomes `sudo add-apt-repository -u ppa:apt-fast/stable && sudo apt -y install apt-fast` – Andrei Neculau Nov 24 '20 at 13:04
2

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 )

Run5k
  • 15,723
  • 24
  • 49
  • 63
linxuser
  • 21
  • 1
0

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.

Robert Norman
  • 1