Use apt-p2p To Improve Ubuntu 9.04 Upgrade

An anonymous reader writes "With Jaunty Jackalope scheduled for release in 12 days on April 23, this blog posting describes how to switch to apt-p2p in preparation for the upgrade. This should help significantly to reduce the load on the mirrors, smooth out the upgrade experience for all involved, and bypass the numerous problems that have occurred in the past on Ubuntu release day. Remember to disable all third-party repositories beforehand."

Comments

Alternate CD

[elwin_windleaf]

You can also upgrade Ubuntu with an alternate install CD. These can be downloaded via bittorrent, and usually trigger an "automatic update" prompt as soon as they are inserted into an existing Ubuntu system.

good idea but...

[mrphoton]

I had wondered for a while why yum and apt did not do this by default. It would seem a great ideal. However.... I recently tried to down load fedora 11 alpha via bit torrent using a BT internet connection in the UK. It worked great for about 10Mb (@90-100kb/s), then the download speed gradually ground to a halt. (5kb/s) When I tried a direct download of the same iso the speed bumped back up to a steady 100kb/s. I concluded BT was throttling my bit torrent connection of a legal download to a very slow speed.
So my point is sounds like a great idea but if it is enabled by default it had better have some way to detect bandwidth throttling of p2p networks and revert to http transfer.

Re:good idea but...

[Kjella]

All packages are signed, the repository is just a convienient way of getting them. If you add a third party repository they usually also ask you to add their public key to the trusted package signers. That's also why you have all the local mirrors - I doubt Canonical operates very many of them. Same thing in companies, set one machine to download and the 100 others to download from the local machine, you don't need to put any trust in that machine as it's just passing signed packages. So you download the package from P2P or whatever, apt checks the signature and if's Genuine Canonical(tm) it'll install the package otherwise it'll complain. Didn't you notice the repositories are all http? No certificates or security checks there, anyone can give you any garbage data but it won't have the right signature.

Deterrent

[senorpoco]

I have yet to have an Ubuntu distro update smoothly, ever. But that won't stop me, onward I will plunge headlong into it with abandon. I don't like my data anyway.

Bandwidth usage

[Chris_Jefferson]

I'm concerned that after reading the article, and apt-p2p's FAQ page, that I can't find any guide to how much upload bandwidth this thing will use. While I'm all for sharing, I find it important to cap my upload speed so my connection performs well on other stuff I'm doing, and also stop uploading once I'm at 1:1 sharing or so. Some of us pay if we use too much bandwidth!

No thanks, im no criminal

[wjh31]

p2p is a method used exclusively by criminals, there's no way im going to be using this method.

Slashdotted?

[drinkypoo]

It worked for me. But in case it really is slashdotted here's the story, from memory (let's test those theories eh?)

1. apt-get install apt-p2p (Not in Hardy and older repos IIRC... for you late/sporadic upgraders)
2. Back up your /etc/apt/sources.list and then edit the file, s/\/\//\/\/localhost:9977\// (hope I got that right -- Guess I could have just used # or something eh?)
3. Not in the guide: edit /etc/apt-p2p/apt-p2p.conf and set UPLOAD_LIMIT ... just in case. :) You probably have to /etc/init.d/apt-p2p restart after that.
4. apt-get update
5. Then make the update... But it's not time for that yet.