![why](/static/img/x1mno0Ukhc-600.jpeg)
Just today, the US archives for the Ubuntu repositories were down again and thus servers were not updated. Thus I set out to see if there are better methods to overcome when those archives are down. As I thought, the use of mirrors is an alternative. Here is what you can put into your ‘/etc/apt/sources.list’ file and it will find the nearest mirror according to your location:
[code]deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src mirror://mirrors.ubuntu.com/mirrors.txt lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse
[/code]
This method works since Ubuntu 10.04 up to the latest one.