monthly Ubuntu 8.04 hurting cap

F

FoRmFacTor

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 11, 2006
Messages
491
Reaction score
0
Location
Pretoria
Hi everyone,

I have a very very noob question...

it seems like the updates for ubuntu are pretty huge every month...i could be downloading upwards of 200 megs a month just on updates...

is this normal?

all i want updated is the "core" of the os...no extra stuff...

not sure what to do...

any help will be greatly appreciated:-)
 
200MB a month? How many non-core apps do you have?
I don't spend even close to that on upgrades.

I usually do all my upgrades together, will take a look to see what I can do for you.
 
The first thing you should do maybe, is to upgrade to 8.10. This should minimise upates as the newest updates are then available already.
Do you use local or international cap to do your updates? It's a lot cheaper to go the local route... and you can still get the newest updates within a day from it being released on the international mirrors.

Take a look at the update manager (System->Admin->Update Manager). It should tell you there what is important and what not (I can't be sure now since I don't have any available updates).
 
Don’t know about ubuntu but standard fedora and debian installs do about that much if not more.
 
200MB each month on a (mostly) base install? That doesn't seem right.

What packages have you installed?
 
froot said:
The first thing you should do maybe, is to upgrade to 8.10. This should minimise upates as the newest updates are then available already.
Click to expand...

I'm running 8.10 and it still updates like crazy. I think the longer the release is in use, the more updates become available.
 
Slootvreter said:
I'm running 8.10 and it still updates like crazy. I think the longer the release is in use, the more updates become available.
Click to expand...
Yeah - I'm also surprised by how much it updates itself. Fortunately I've got uncapped local but still . . .
 
FoRmFacTor said:
Hi everyone,

I have a very very noob question...

it seems like the updates for ubuntu are pretty huge every month...i could be downloading upwards of 200 megs a month just on updates...

is this normal?
Click to expand...


Yup, I was getting about the same. I just disabled all updates in the end.

Unfortunately you can't disable the annoying nag popup that keeps warning you that you're not up to date, (must have been a rogue MS programmer who added that 'feature').
 
Don’t know about ubuntu but standard fedora and debian installs do about that much if not more.
 
It mostly depends on what is being released, you will find that Gnome had a release going stable this month, as well as KDE, so that will be around 100Mb per DE.

If it still does this next month then you have to take a serious look at what you have installed and don't use any more. What I do is enable verbose and confirmation on all updates, this way I can see what it is trying to update, and if it is something I do no use any more I uninstall it. Just get in the habit of checking the list of things it would want to update.

There was a feature in Gentoo on my dial-up days (ISDN) where you could get delta builds, basically it would just download the part of the source that changed, implement it in the new build and there you go, A normal Open Office download would be something like 140Mb, but with delta it was something like under 10Mb per update. Specially handy with libs that get updated frequently.
 
Last edited:
Hey,

thanks for all the advice:-) really appreciate it:-) will double check what i have installed.

thanks again
 
Get a Local-only prepaid account from an ISP like Axxess (R12 per Gb, with carryover) and use that for your Ubuntu updates. Easy-peezy!
:D
 
There's a provider offering 10GB local for R80pm... really not bad.
 
Go to System -> Administration -> Software Sources. Select tab Updates and check 'Check for updates' (you may uncheck it as well if you do not want automatic checks) using combo box next to it select 'Every two weeks'. Hope it helps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X