How To select fastest mirror in Ubuntu
Posted by admin on May 9th, 2008 
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To launch Synaptic, choose System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager
Now you need to select Settings -> Repositories.
Select Ubuntu Software tab In the Download From drop down, choose Other…
Click the Select Best Server button in the resulting dialog.Wait a minute (or perhaps more on a slow connection).
Testing best server is in progress
Once it’s finished,click on choose server
close everything and click Reload in the main Synaptic window.
Downloading package information in progress from your new mirror
This simple procedure picks the best mirror for you. This works for me very well so i would suggest you try this and see if it works for you or not.
If you have any other method which worked for you please let us know.
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May 9th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Thanks for this, really great, i have three hardy ubuntu boxes in our house, this helps.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:40 am
Sometimes the fastest server won’t work. After you select it and refresh the repos, it gives you an error. If this happens, start synaptic from a terminal (sudo synaptic) and do the test again. This will actually show you the fastest few repos, and you can try the next fastest!
May 9th, 2008 at 3:00 am
Also just take a look in the list and see if you recognize any of the servers. I’ve run the find best server and it doesn’t always come up with the server that I can get the best bandwith from. I’ve had it put me on a server in Spain before and I live in Oregon. Thankfully there is a server about an hour drive from here that gives me 1.5 megabyte a second download rates!
So just make sure and take a look and don’t just “trust” the ping based method.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:25 am
Nice Post. Did not know about this functionality in Ubuntu
May 9th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Is there a way to select the second or third fastest mirror, as for me the fastest mirror sometimes does not work (sometimes it produces checksum failures, sometimes it seems not to be available…)? Any input would be appreciated
May 9th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I just have updates download in the background and use the main server for installing new stuff (since it has less downtime than mirrors in my experience).
May 9th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Using a local server doesn’t always work.
I was wondering why the estimate for downloading kde had dropped to 8 hours on my usual 5-6 meg connection from the uk canonical repository.
I chose the select best server method and 45 minutes later I had it downladed & installed.
May 26th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I wonder if there is a similar way to do this from the command line. Or I have to manually edit the /etc/apt/source.list?
June 29th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
Thanks for leaving simple instructions! Everything else I have looked up has not been “end-user” friendly. Please keep it up!