[buug] Buug Digest, Vol 48, Issue 14

[Pewter Bot]

2009/3/21  <buug-request at weak.org>:
On Fri, 20 Mar 2009 Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> posted:

{{ Moral of the story:  Don't rely on pages about Linux-related
software written by generic IT journalists who have no idea what
they're talking about. }}

You're right, very well said, Rick. Thanks for the elucidation; I
enjoyed learning about the specifics immensely. You comments are
sparing me much waste of time, useless distractions, and irritating
bad habits. In return, I'll be more careful about referring Linux
resources that are too sparse in their offerings, or lazy in their
definitions.

Having said this: do you know anything about the team at
ppa.launchpad.net ? They are the creators of the excellent GUI
"netbook-launcher", a really elegant and useful graphic gateway for
Linux newbies. Turns out that their attempts to secure their source
pages from corruption, they screwed up on the pgp aspect. And that
uninstalling netbook-launcher cleared up the problem entirely. Keeping
it caused failures in attempts to update packages. Yeeesh! The
repositories in question are:

http://blog.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu intrepid
http://blog.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-team/ubuntu intrepid

And I'm not the only one kinda PO'd; in fact had  others not come
before me, and told me what the problem was, I would've have had to
spend many more days's frustration. Here's a blog about the matter,
which discovery helped me finally resume flawless updates:

http://blog.launchpad.net/ppa/adding-a-ppas-key-to-ubuntu

The video listed there, that explains how to add a repository w/PGP, I
followed very carefully to get  right the first time...which led to
download errors during update...and halted the process early on. NOT
something a newbie cares to experience on his first official attempt
to update a spanking new Linux distro. Aaargh!

This time, all packages downloaded/installed quite quickly for so many
megabytes...what a relief. But now that I have your attention (once
again, thanks much); and I'm not even sure if I'm asking the right
question (learning curve issue, blech):

Update manage is using only one URL for repository. Wouldn't it ease
uploads, in times when that URL is flaky or down? There are is another
URL listed in the "3rd party" options, which is not activated. I'm
wondering if you know its reputation to be reliable:

http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu intrepid

Or, maybe I should just keep to the main page of "Software Sources",
which has the United States as default...with "Main Server" and
"others". But when there are times that server is bogged down, there
are other URL's listed to choose from, among many, many
countries...and from the US such as:

archive.linux.duke.edu
mirror.cc.columbia.edu
ftp.usf.edu
mirrors.mit.edu
ubuntu.cs.utah.edu

As you probably know, there are a lot more on that list. But because
they appear on the Update Manger's main menu (instead of "third
party"), can I assume they are all secure, reliable sources?

Thanks again...enjoy this rainy day (if it really happens). I'm
posting right now, from Tully's by the Shattuck BART.

  - Zeke