Use your ISP's "Freezone" to add to your repositories.

Sorry I haven't been one for a while, but I thought I'd do an informative article on how to use your ISP's freezone (the downloads that don't count towards your limit) as part of your repositories in Ubuntu.

Why? I have limits per month on my downloads and if I exceed those (which I always do), my internet gets shaped. But, my ISP has a "freezone" - an area where I can download from their servers and it doesn't count. They also happen to host some reasonably (but not perfectly) up to date Ubuntu repositories. So I figured out how to add them on, remark all the usual ubuntu ones and not waste my downloads.

In my instance, the ubuntu repositories are at http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu/dists/. I found them quite by accident trowling around the server on the ISP's site. The directory list is as follows:

files
Index of /linux/ubuntu/dists/

Name
Last modified
Size
File Description
Parent Directory

-

dapper
Tue Aug 8 20:41:18 2006
-

dapper-backports
Tue Aug 8 20:41:26 2006
-

dapper-proposed
Tue Aug 8 20:41:26 2006
-

dapper-security
Tue Aug 8 20:41:26 2006
-

dapper-updates
Tue Aug 8 20:41:23 2006
-

edgy
Wed Oct 25 23:52:55 2006
-

edgy-backports
Tue Aug 8 20:41:17 2006
-

edgy-proposed
Tue Aug 8 20:41:17 2006
-

edgy-security
Tue Aug 8 20:41:17 2006
-

edgy-updates
Tue Aug 8 20:41:17 2006
-

feisty
Mon Nov 27 20:35:24 2006
-

feisty-backports
Wed Nov 1 21:24:13 2006
-

feisty-proposed
Wed Nov 1 21:24:13 2006
-

feisty-security
Wed Nov 1 21:24:13 2006
-

feisty-updates
Wed Nov 1 21:24:13 2006
-

gutsy
Sun Oct 7 12:17:40 2007
-

gutsy-backports
Fri Apr 20 21:25:58 2007
-

gutsy-proposed
Fri Apr 20 21:25:59 2007
-

gutsy-security
Fri Apr 20 21:25:59 2007
-

gutsy-updates
Fri Apr 20 21:25:59 2007
-

hardy
Fri Oct 19 01:46:36 2007
-

hardy-backports
Fri Oct 19 01:46:36 2007
-

hardy-proposed
Fri Oct 19 01:46:36 2007
-

hardy-security
Fri Oct 19 01:46:36 2007
-

hardy-updates
Fri Oct 19 01:46:36 2007

Great!

So I edit my /etc/apt/sources.list using gedit or nano or whatever you like:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

In the file I remark (put a #) in front of the regular ubuntu entries (eg. #deb http://au.archive.ubuntu.com gusty main )

I add an entry for each of the above lines for my distro, i.e. add the following lines:

deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gutsy main
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gutsy restricted
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gutsy universe
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gutsy multiverse

The main, restricted, universe and multiverse entries are all sub folders in http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu/dists/gutsy/ - I think that the server folder structure has to be that particular way. The dists bit gets dissed.

Then I add for each other folder in the dists directory:

deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gusty-updates main
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gusty-updates restricted
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gusty-updates universe
deb http://ftp.iinet.net.au/linux/ubuntu gusty-updates multiverse

and so on for gutsy-security, gusty-backports, whatever you want.

Pretty simple really.

Save and exit the /etc/apt/sources.list, and update via command line or update manager (refresh the list first) and it should all be up and running.

My ISP can be a few days behind, but not enough to make me not consider this a worthwhile thing to do.

Cheers,