Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

Sheepeh · 2009-12-06 02:07:56

Hello, first post from a new user, so be gentle!

After trying Mint 7 CE with KDE4, I saw potential there but saw that naturally it was an old version due to release dates, so thought I'd try out Arch for the rolling release of new versions as and when. I followed the wiki for installation with a laptop on my knee, and completed it easily first time, making the best choices I could with my knowledge available - including just selecting the "Great Britain" mirrors in mirrorlist.

Issueing pacman -Syu did go and grab a few bits, so I thought all was well. Then a few days ago I saw a notice that KDE 4.3.4 was out in the Arch repos, but I didn't get it from a pacman -Syu. No problems, thought I, probably just taking a few days to make its way to x86_64, I'll just hang on for a bit. But, it didn't. I was actually about to post about it here, asking if perhaps it was just undergoing a conversion or such, and it'd be along later - I didn't mind waiting if I knew it was coming. But I decided to mooch around Archwiki before asking something likely to get my first post branded as "another newb who came for KDE" .

I had a hunt around and found an entry for kdelibs4.3.4-2 dated 5 days ago, and wondered if it was available, then why wasn't I getting it? As a test I looked in mirrorlist and uncommented every single server in there, and issued pacman -Syy, then pacman -Syu and sure enough, another 300 packages including KDE 4.3.4. I'm installing them now.

So, did I make an error here or forget (not know about!) something I should have refreshed? Or is it really just that every single GB mirror is quite outdated? Considering that I've re-ranked by speed and used powerpill to pull in the updates for concurrency, should I now leave everything uncommented - or will it cause problems in the future?

Apologies for my first post being a bunch of (probably basic) questions!

<edit> Gawd, this isn't going well, is it? I just noticed this would probably have been better asked in pacman updating forum. In fairness, it started out as me posting asking if the repo was updated yet and found the solution half way through, so if anyone wants to move it over there, please do. </edit>

Last edited by Sheepeh (2009-12-06 02:26:24)

mikesd · 2009-12-06 05:47:50

Looks like one of the GB mirrors is quite outdated. mirrors.uk2.net is 16 days out of date. Perhaps you were using this one? I find the same issue with some of my local mirrors. One of them is 97 days out of date. If I seem to be missing updates I just check https://users.archlinux.de/~gerbra/mirrorcheck.html which is listed in the wiki. It will let you know the current state of the mirrors.

I normally only have one mirror uncommented in mirrorlist. I don't think having them all uncommented would cause major issues though the earlier entries would take precedence over later ones. You may be downloading from a non ideal mirror speedwise.

Oh and welcome to the forums.

Sheepeh · 2009-12-06 10:20:32

Yeah, I had all the GB ones selected, but it seems none of them had the KDE bits I was after. No matter, I've enabled some more now and with powerpill pulling everything at once I am getting 2MiB speeds, so that's all good.

I guess I'll just keep a close eye on it and check it's working from now, but I guess it should be.

To be honest I'm glad it wasn't just a case of having to wait because I chose to install the x86_64 version. I'll make sure to bookmark the Mirrorcheck site - I did see it on the Wiki page after you'd mentioned it - I guess that's what comes of installing a new system from instructions at 5am!

Oh, and thanks for the welcome - considering I've only really used Linux Mint as a fulltime Linux (Ubuntu always had *something* that I couldn't get working) I wasn't sure how I'd get on with Arch, nor the forum go-ers. Thankfully, so far both have been positive experiences.

Last edited by Sheepeh (2009-12-06 10:24:05)

fastfret79 · 2009-12-06 10:48:13

I went through and optimised my mirrorlist only yesterday! I also use powerpill and have about 50 servers uncommented.

To optimise, I uncommented about 70 servers from GB, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, USA etc (I'm in UK also) and ran the rank mirrors script. Oddly enough, a French server ranked second fastest, and a Dutch one came third.

Then I went through my top 10 fastest on the mirrorcheck page and worked out which one was most up to date and moved that to the top of my list. This way, you will have the most up to date mirrors and powerpill will keep everything super fast

owain · 2009-12-06 15:07:33

mikesd wrote:

Looks like one of the GB mirrors is quite outdated. mirrors.uk2.net is 16 days out of date. Perhaps you were using this one?

Sounds likely, I've removed it from my mirrorlist for this reason. Which is a shame, because I found it to routinely be the fastest. (A Dutch one is normally second.)

kaivalagi · 2009-12-30 16:51:42

I use the following bash function to update my mirrorlist file now and again:

update_mirrorlist()
{
    stamp=`date +%Y%m%d-%H%M%S`
    echo "Backing up mirrorlist to mirrorlist.$stamp.backup"
    sudo cp /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.$stamp.backup
    echo "Creating new mirrorlist file of top 30 fastest which have been updated in the last 24 hours..."
    sudo reflector -h 24 -f 30 -o /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
    yaourt --noconfirm -Sy
}

You'll need to install "reflector" to do this, it will return a mirrorlist, in this case, taking the mirrors updated in the last 24 hours that are the top 30 performing...

Last edited by kaivalagi (2009-12-30 16:52:10)

owain · 2009-12-30 22:52:54

fastfret79 wrote:

To optimise, I uncommented about 70 servers from GB, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, USA etc (I'm in UK also) and ran the rank mirrors script. Oddly enough, a French server ranked second fastest, and a Dutch one came third.

I get the same, and as they seem to be more frequently and reliably updated, have them as my first choices.

(Anyway, it's not that odd, is it? I recall a childhood Sunday in Suffolk, when I managed to get grainy Dutch TV by messing about with the mysterious 'Channel 5' setting...and that was without the convenience of just laying a wire across a short stretch of water.)

Arch Linux

#1 2009-12-06 02:07:56

Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

#2 2009-12-06 05:47:50

Re: Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

#3 2009-12-06 10:20:32

Re: Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

#4 2009-12-06 10:48:13

Re: Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

#5 2009-12-06 15:07:33

Re: Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

#6 2009-12-30 16:51:42

Re: Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

#7 2009-12-30 22:52:54

Re: Great Britain mirrors lagging behind?

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