Several times over the past couple years, I've heard of people using apt-fast
for updating and installing packages, but I'm not really sure what it does. I think I've traced its origin to this forum post, and it seems to be a script that speeds up apt-get
operations.
What exactly does the script do? Are there any potential downsides to using it? If not, why isn't everyone using it?
Best Answer
It appears to use the program
axel
to download the files using multiple concurrent connections to multiple mirrors. My guess is that everyone isn't using it because most people don't have connections that are significantly faster than the mirrors, and therefore, can substantially benefit from concurrent downloads, combined with the fact that most people haven't heard of it. This is the first time I've ever heard it mentioned in 5 years of running Ubuntu.