mon petit blogue sans importance...

mirror, mirror, tell me where to get my software!

There are many mirrors for Debian, the linux kernel, and Ubuntu (the 3 main pieces i care finding mirrors for). But if you're in Montréal, there's better ones than what you see in the official lists, for when you want to download the latest Ubuntu CD.

There's one that most people don't use or even know about (i don't think it ever makes the list of official mirrors): the linux users group of the University of Sherbrooke. They're on CANet, which is very well peered in montréal, and you'll find that if you have a very good internet connection, it'll be faster to install your OS from Gulus then from a CD. They mirror the kernel, debian and ubuntu, amongst many other things.

I also just found out that iWeb, a very nice Montréal server hosting and colocation company that we're using at Akoha for non-application servers (all servers for our application are on Amazon EC2), mirrors Debian and Ubuntu and many others.

IWeb is extremely well connected, so though i haven't used them their mirrors, they should be as fast or faster than Gulus. In fact, i never download the full install CD for debian, i just use the netinst CD, which has base packages and then downloads the rest from a mirror of your choice. I just wish Ubuntu had the same option: a small image with kernels, very basic packages, and the installer, which would then pull everything else from the net.

Post other awesome mirror locations in the comments if you've been using them.

by wiswaud on 14 November 2008
Tags: english, geeky, linux, ubuntu