Arch Linux

MR_NINJA

Member

Registered: 2013-01-22

Posts: 1

About how much bandwidth does the average Arch installation require.

So, I would like to install arch on an old computer, but I have limited bandwidth usage, as my (5-person) family has a 10 GB cap on our Internet usage.  I was wondering as to how much data the average install uses.  As long as it's under 100 MBs, it's fine.  I have the install iso, and I don't need a DE.  If I could get X (and stay under 100 MBs) that would be nice, but not necessary.

    This isn't urgent, but if you know it would be nice.

matteotom

Member

Registered: 2012-12-01

Posts: 7

Re: About how much bandwidth does the average Arch installation require.

I did a quick test of just downloading files, here are the results:

As minimal as I'd be willing to go: base, base-devel, ifplugd for wired connections, wireless utilities, grub, sudo, alsa, xorg (with xterm, xclock, etc), mesa, amd drivers (32 and 64 bit), i3 (wm), lxdm (login), and firefox: it came out to 280MB

Even more minimal: base, base-devel, ifplugd, grub, sudo, alsa, xorg (with only xterm), i3, and lynx for a web browser: 200MB

So, either way you'll be going over your goal for the first month.  After that, I have no idea how much updating would take per month, but I can't imagine it being more than 100MB for such a minimal install.

karol

Archivist

Registered: 2009-05-06

Posts: 25,440

Re: About how much bandwidth does the average Arch installation require.

There is no such thing as "an average Arch install" I'm afraid.

The iso is just a liveCD, you have to download fresh packages from the server anyway.
If you update less often (e.g. once a month instead every couple days) you will download less.

You can try using https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Deltup

hunterthomson

Member

Registered: 2008-06-22

Posts: 794

Website

Re: About how much bandwidth does the average Arch installation require.

What you could do is like run the pacman -S command for each package you would like to install, and then hit "n". Cut-n-Past all the packages and dependencies that you will need. Then get on the Internet from some other location and download all the packages from the website to a USB stick.

http://www.archlinux.org/packages/

Now, when you want to install; Boot into the Arch Live CD/USB and mount the USB stick with all the packages on it to /var/cache/pacman/pkg

mount /dev/sdb1 /var/cache/pacman/pkg

Now when you go to install the packages you want, pacman will see that it already has the newest packages in it's cache and use them instead of downloading them.

....
What country do you live in? Boy, 10GB cap! I'd burn through that in like 2 days or less. What really burns me is that there is Zero reason for an ISP to "Cap" anyones usage. Now, rate limiting is valid.

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OpenBSD-current Thinkpad X230, i7-3520M, 16GB CL9 Kingston, Samsung 830 256GB
Contributor: linux-grsec

timpattinson

Member

Registered: 2013-01-25

Posts: 4

Re: About how much bandwidth does the average Arch installation require.

Not directly answering your question, but your ISP may have an unmetered fie server with an Arch mirror on it.
e.g. with Telstra Bigpond (Australian ISP) i can download Arch (and use pacman to update and install software)
from http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/archlin … 013.01.04/ without it contributing to my download quota.