Less that 48 hours for Feisty Fawn to be released! I thought I should write about how to go about getting your image the fastest way possible on release day. Ubuntu’s download servers are fast - and I mean really fast - but you still can save a lot of time if you start downloading now. You can avoid the traffic on release day, or the day after - when you are dying to get the latest image, and every minute seems like eternity. Enough with the hyperbole - lets get down to the method, shall we?
The secret to the recipe is rsync. How it works is, you download the latest testing release using rsync today or tomorrow, and then when Feisty is released, you update the cd image using rsync. Only changes to the files will be downloaded - and you couldn’t be wiser!
Download the current “Daily” testing image using rsync:
$cd ~
$rsync -vPz rsync://cdimage.ubuntu.com/cdimage/daily-live/current/feisty-desktop-i386.iso .
(Notice the “.” (dot) at the end - you need it)
Since the above is not displaying too well in the page, here is how the command is made up:
There is “rsync” at the beginning with the options “-vPz”. Then there is the url:
” rsync://cdimage.ubuntu.com/cdimage/daily-live/current/feisty-desktop-i386.iso”, and
then there is a “.” at the end.
You should be able to copy all of that from up above, and paste it in a text editor to see copying it got everything.
The above will download the Daily testing image and put it in your home directory. The options to rsync ask it to be verbose, to show the progress and to use compression.
Now, after Feisty is released, do:
$cd ~
$mv feisty-desktop-i386.iso ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso
$rsync -vPz rsync://releases.ubuntu.com/feisty/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso .
Again, the rsync URL is
“rsync://releases.ubuntu.com/feisty/ubuntu-7.04-desktop-i386.iso”
The above will first rename the file you previously downloaded to match the name of the release image and then update the image.
Some miscellany:
- I got this idea primarily from an old email Simon Law sent out, extended using this tutorial for Debian(which is not directly applicable to Ubuntu - I might add)
- You can use a list of CD Image Mirrors to find one closer to you - look for an “rsync://” url
- I figure this method will work - if you have any ways of improving this, please let me know in the comments
