28Nov/090
Speed up apt-get with axel and apt-fast.
Web Upd8 has a nice article on a bash script by Matt Parnell that uses axel to increase the speed of apt-get updates. Basically, install axel then use this script instead of apt-get:
#!/bin/sh #apt-fast by Matt Parnell http://www.mattparnell.com , this thing is FOSS #please feel free to suggest improvements to admin@mattparnell.com # Use this just like apt-get for faster package downloading. Make sure to have axel installed #If the first user entered variable string contains apt-get, and the second string entered is either install or dist-upgrade if echo "$1" | grep -q "[upgrade]" || echo "$2" | grep -q "[install]" || echo "$2" | grep -q "[dist-upgrade]"; then echo "Working..."; #Go into the directory apt-get normally puts downloaded packages cd /var/cache/apt/archives/; #Have apt-get print the information, including the URI's to the packages apt-get -y --print-uris $1 $2 $3 $4 > debs.list; #Strip out the URI's, and download the packages with Axel for speediness egrep -o -e "(ht|f)tp://[^\']+" debs.list | xargs -l1 axel -a; #Perform the user's reqested action via apt-get apt-get -y $1 $2 $3 $4; echo "Done! Make sure and check to see that the packages all were installed properly. If a package is erred, run sudo apt-get autoclean and try installing it again without the use of this script."; elif echo "$1" | grep -q "[*]"; then apt-get $1; else echo "Sorry, but you appear to be entering invalid options. You must use apt-get and one of apt-get's options in order to use this script."; fi
