apt-get issues

[eraker]

Please bear with me as I'm just learning to use apt-get. I have a pretty light-weight version of debian installed on an old ibook and I've been trying to get apt-get via network to work, but every time I run apt-get update, it ends up looking through a seemingly infinite number of ftp.us.debian.org sites at different ip addresses. They all say 99% next to them but after about two minutes they all time-out before apt-get moves on to another. I added repositories as instructed by debian's site, but I'm not sure if I should get rid of some or look for others in other places. Googling hasn't produced much useful info for me.

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[stokes]

Typially you only need a few lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list for apt to work correctly. The others can be commented out with a # at the beginning of the line. You should add some sources that are geographically close to you, i.e if you are in the UK, ftp.debain.co.uk ... etc.

You could try using netselect to find reliable mirrors for you, check this link:

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/ap...s-sources.list

Or you can just add the mirrors yourself manually, from here:

http://www.debian.org/mirror/mirrors_full

Don't forget you will need to run apt-get update after you make any changes your sources.list.