maclarke/apt-fast

apt-fast: A shellscript wrapper for apt that speeds up downloading of packages.

apt-fast 1.8

apt-fast is a shellscript wrapper for apt-get and aptitude that can drastically improve apt download times by downloading packages in parallel, with multiple connections per package.

Setup/Install

PPA

You can use the PPA to get a graphical configuration file setup and automatic updates, for details see: ppa:apt-fast/stable.

Some distros, such as PCLinuxOS include apt-fast in their repos.

Manual

For those of you who want to manually install it, download it and perform the following:

cp apt-fast /usr/bin/
chmod +x /usr/bin/apt-fast
cp apt-fast.conf /etc

You need to have aria2c installed:

apt-get install aria2

Then, you should be ready to use it - simply run apt-fast instead of apt-get or aptitude any time you find yourself needing to manage packages!

Multiple mirrors

It is recommended to add some local mirrors to share bandwidth with multiple mirrors and don't heavily pull from a single server. This will also speedup download.
Look at your distribution's archive mirror list and select some mirrors.

• Debian: http://www.debian.org/mirror/list
• Ubuntu: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors Then add them to whitespace and comma separated list in config file, e.g.: MIRRORS=( 'http://ftp.debian.org/debian,http://ftp2.de.debian.org/debian,http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian,ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/debian' 'http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu,http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu,http://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/ubuntu,http://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/linux/ubuntu,http://mirror.informatik.uni-mannheim.de/pub/linux/distributions/ubuntu/' )

NOTE: Write also your mirrors listed in your sources.list into that list to make sure associated mirrors are handled properly. Remember: Commas separate mirrors for same archive, whitespaces separate different archives (e.g. official archive and PPA are different archives).

Autocompletion

Bash

cp completions/bash/apt-fast /etc/bash_completion.d/
chown root:root /etc/bash_completion.d/apt-fast
. /etc/bash_completion

Zsh

cp completions/zsh/_apt-fast /usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Debian/
chown root:root /usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Debian/_apt-fast
source /usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Debian/_apt-fast

Manual page installation

cp ./man/apt-fast.8 /usr/share/man/man8
gzip -f9 /usr/share/man/man8/apt-fast.8
cp ./man/apt-fast.conf.5 /usr/share/man/man5
gzip -f9 /usr/share/man/man5/apt-fast.conf.5

License

Consider apt-fast and all of it's derivatives licensed under the GNU GPLv3+.

Copyright: 2008-2012 Matt Parnell, http://www.mattparnell.com
Improvements, maintenance, revisions - 2012 Dominique Lasserre

Special thanks

• Travis/travisn000 - support for complex apt-get commands
• Allan Hoffmeister - aria2c support
• Abhishek Sharma - aria2c with proxy support
• Luca Marchetti - improvements on the locking system and downloader execution
• Richard Klien - Autocompletion, Download Size Checking (made for on ubuntu, untested on other distros)
• Patrick Kramer Ruiz - suggestions
• Sergio Silva - test to see if axel is installed, root detection/sudo autorun, lock file check/creation
• Waldemar {BOB}{Burnfaker} Wetzel - lockfile improvements, separate config file