Arch Linux

dobbs

Member

From: Oregon USA

Registered: 2010-10-06

Posts: 74

Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Visit the Pacman Mirrorlist Generator:
http://www.archlinux.org/mirrorlist/.
Improve synching and pacman download times. A list is generated by region and it can replace
old or slow mirrorlist (/etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist). It dramatically improved my package download times from slow to fast...:-)

joe74

Member

From: Managua, Nicaragua

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 21

Website

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

My mirror list was generated by that Pacman Mirrorlist Generator and now there are a dozen repos not responding. Is there a problem with them? though they sometimes work, sometimes they don't...

dobbs

Member

From: Oregon USA

Registered: 2010-10-06

Posts: 74

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

I generated the list once after my install. Never had any problems with it. I just checked the list against my install list, it's the same and it works fine.... :-)
Btw, you did uncomment the links?

Last edited by dobbs (2011-01-08 21:15:30)

joe74

Member

From: Managua, Nicaragua

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 21

Website

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Btw, you did uncomment the links?

For sure, I did. It's maybe they don't work very well from my country.

pablokal

Administrator

From: Nijmegen, Holland

Registered: 2010-10-12

Posts: 2,627

Website

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

My mirror list was generated by that Pacman Mirrorlist Generator and now there are a dozen repos not responding. Is there a problem with them? though they sometimes work, sometimes they don't...

Did you specify your achitecture?
To indicate whether you want/ have a 32 or 64 bit program / system, I replace at the end of each line $ arch by  i686 for older pc's or  x86_64 if you have a newer 64 bit system.
I always do that because else I will face some connection problem sometimes.

---

Getting your questions answered here at ArchBang Forums
Please! Always give hardware info, if there is a chance that 's relevant: #lspci -vnn
Quote: What I have learnt from Linux is to minimize dependencies and functionalities for greater independence.
On Arch(bang) and Openbox: http://stillstup.blogspot.com/

prairie_dad

New member

Registered: 2011-02-28

Posts: 4

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Doesn't the Arch installation guide suggest running Mirrorlist as a regular step?  Any reason A! shouldn't do the same? I wondered about that when I first installed A! the other day...but haven't gotten around to running it myself!

pablokal

Administrator

From: Nijmegen, Holland

Registered: 2010-10-12

Posts: 2,627

Website

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Yes, you're right, update  mirrorlist regularly.
Rankmirrors is another tool to do it.

---

Getting your questions answered here at ArchBang Forums
Please! Always give hardware info, if there is a chance that 's relevant: #lspci -vnn
Quote: What I have learnt from Linux is to minimize dependencies and functionalities for greater independence.
On Arch(bang) and Openbox: http://stillstup.blogspot.com/

doug piston

Member

Registered: 2011-12-18

Posts: 64

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Reflector is a great tool for sorting the mirrorlist

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Reflector

oliver

Administrator

Registered: 2010-11-04

Posts: 1,516

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Reflector is a great tool for sorting the mirrorlist

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Reflector

agreed - thats what I run from cron every week

---

Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well. To what do I owe the extreme pleasure of this surprising visit?

doug piston

Member

Registered: 2011-12-18

Posts: 64

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Reflector is a great tool for sorting the mirrorlist

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Reflector

agreed - thats what I run from cron every week

What a great idea. I hadn't thought of that.

rog

Member

Registered: 2012-02-08

Posts: 15

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Can anybody tell me...when you generate a list with the Use mirror status: checkbox checked, what does the score it give indicate? And is a high score or low score preferable?

Thanks!

ArchVortex

Retired AB Overlord

From: Jakarta, Indonesia

Registered: 2011-04-01

Posts: 1,449

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

The lower the score, the better.

## Score: 0.7, United States
#Server = http://mirror.rit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.8, United States
#Server = http://mirror.ece.vt.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.8, United States
#Server = http://mirrors.us.kernel.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.9, United States
#Server = ftp://mirror.rit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.0, Germany
#Server = http://mirror.devnu11.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, Germany
#Server = http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/linux/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, Japan
#Server = http://ftp.jaist.ac.jp/pub/Linux/ArchLinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, United States
#Server = ftp://ftp.archlinux.org/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, United States
#Server = http://mirror.mocker.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, France
#Server = http://archlinux.polymorf.fr/$repo/os/$arch

You can see that rit.edu is the fastest for the US on this list. The problem is fastest mirror doesn't always mean best download speed. Jaist,ac,jp is the fastest mirror for me in my area but soooo slow for downloading.

---

GUI's?? We don't need no stinkin' GUI's!!!

rog

Member

Registered: 2012-02-08

Posts: 15

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

Thank you! Ok, I have my mirrors set up, now I'm onto the next issue. ;-)

andrekp

Member

Registered: 2013-01-06

Posts: 18

Re: Pacman Mirrorlist Generator - Improve Pacman's Speed

This is a script I use:

#!/bin/bash

#This script is used to do a full update.  It will:
# 1).  Update the pacman mirrorlist to be headed by the most recently
#      updated, then fastest (best options on top of list)
# 2).  Then it will display the new mirrorlist for you to verify.
#      -Hit "Y" to proceed with update.
# 3).  It will execute pacman -Syu to find packages to update.
#      -Hit "Y" to proceed with update.
# 4).  It will give you a choice to proceed to clean the cache to 3 versions
#      of each program.  (better than pacman -Scc)
#      -Hit "Y" to clean out the cache.
# 5).  Script exits.


#****************************************************************************************************
#  1). Update mirrors to a combo of fastest and most recently sync'ed including only U.S.:

echo " "
echo "*************************************************************"
echo "* Querying U.S. mirror servers for speed and timeliness...  *"
echo "*************************************************************"

sudo /usr/bin/reflector --verbose -c "United States" -l 50 -p http --sort rate --save /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

wait

#****************************************************************************************************
# 2). Display new mirrorlist:

echo " "
echo "*************************************************************"
echo "* Please check the new mirrorlist for accuracy or problems: *"
echo "*************************************************************"
echo " "

#leafpad /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
cat /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

wait

#****************************************************************************************************
# 3). Procede with pacman update if desired:

echo " "
read -p "Continue full system upgrade (Y/n)?" CONT


# Set to "Y" as default if user simply hit [ENTER]:
 
if [[ $CONT == "" ]]; then
	myvar="y"
else
	myvar=$CONT
fi

#Check entry:

case $myvar in
	[yY])
	echo " "
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo "* Performing system upgrade                                 *"
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo " "
	sudo pacman -Syu
	;;
	[nN])
	echo " "
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo "* Exiting full_update                                       *"
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo " "
	exit	
;;
esac

wait

#****************************************************************************************************
# 4). Procede with cache cleaning if desired:

echo " "
echo "*************************************************************"
echo "* Cache Cleaning: *"
echo "*************************************************************"
echo " "

echo " "
read -p "Perform cache clean (Y/n)?" CONT


# Set to "Y" as default if user simply hit [ENTER]:
 
if [[ $CONT == "" ]]; then
	myvar="y"
else
	myvar=$CONT
fi

#Check entry and clean:
#   -p is preview mode, no files deleted
#   -v is verbose mode, shows deleted packges
#    # is number of versions of each package to keep. ( current + previous )

case $myvar in
	[yY])
	# determine packages to be cleaned and display them:
	echo " "
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo "* Finding packages to be cleaned...                         *"
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo " "
	sudo cacheclean -p -v 3
	;;
	[nN])
	echo " "
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo "* Exiting full_update                                       *"
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo " "
	exit	
;;
esac

# debug exit:
# exit

# perform the cleaning

echo " "
read -p "Clean the above files from cache (Y/n)?" CONT


# Set to "Y" as default if user simply hit [ENTER]:
 
if [[ $CONT == "" ]]; then
	myvar="y"
else
	myvar=$CONT
fi

#Check entry and clean:

case $myvar in
	[yY])
	echo " "
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo "* Cleaning cache                                            *"
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo " "
	sudo cacheclean -v 3
	;;
	[nN])
	echo " "
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo "* Exiting full_update                                       *"
	echo "*************************************************************"
	echo " "

	exit	
;;
esac

echo " "
echo "*************************************************************"
echo "* Finishing full_update                                     *"
echo "*************************************************************"
echo " "

exit 

You'll need to install reflector and cacheclean.

It's pretty generic, though you'll want to alter the reflector parms if you aren't in the U.S.

It will update the mirrors, allow you to inspect the updates, do a pacman -Syu  (you can change that to Packer if you prefer), then clean out the cache to hold a total of three versions (change that number if you like).

Nice and simple and keeps you up to date in one step.