Mirrors for Speedier Downloads

• About
• Latest Posts

Purism

Beautiful, Secure, Privacy-Respecting Laptops, Tablets, PCs, and Phones

Latest posts by Purism (see all)

• PureOS Crimson Development Report: October 2024 - November 14, 2024
• PureOS Crimson Development Report: September 2024 - October 16, 2024
• Quantum Safe Communication with Purism - September 23, 2024

To put it briefly, PureOS provides ISO images and packages for download. Recently, we’ve seen increased traffic on our download site, and we expect that traffic to grow. We’re hoping to address increased traffic with mirrors for both package updates and downloads.

We’re very happy to announce that Sonic, a highly-ranked and privacy-respecting ISP, has offered to host a mirror for PureOS. This will alleviate some of the traffic, especially for those in North America, without compromising security. The security of the packages remains guaranteed by our signatures; the mirror simply holds another, identical set of packages, signed with Purism’s key.

The mirror is easy to use. For example, if you’d like to use the mirrors for downloading an image, simply use this URL: https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/downloads/. And here’s the link to the most recent GNOME Live build.

If you’d like to use the mirror for your packages, you have two choices:

1. use the command line to edit your /etc/apt/sources.list
2. use Software to add the mirror URL

The first choice is pretty quick and easy. In the terminal, use your favorite text editor to edit this file, /etc/apt/sources.list, and insert the following line:

deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/repo/pureos/ amber main
deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/repo/pureos/ amber-updates main
deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/repo/pureos/ amber-security main

Then run and apt-get update, and you should be all set.

If you prefer to use the Software tool, simply open Software. You can find it among the apps, by going to the upper left-hand corner of the desktop and clicking on “Activities”; then “Show Applications”, which is the last icon in the dock usually–a collection of nine squares.

Once you see all your apps you can either search for “Software” or scroll down a bit until you see it. And once the first “Software” is open, go to the menu on the top bar where it says “Software” again. There, the drop-down menu will show you an entry for “Software repositories”–and that is where we’ll make our changes, in order to use the new North American mirror. Appropriately enough, once you’ve clicked on the Software repositories menu entry you’ll see the “Software & Updates” screen. In the “Other Software” tab you can enter the new mirror’s URL by clicking on the “Add” button in the bottom left. Now, enter this entire line:

deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/repo/pureos/ amber main
deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/repo/pureos/ amber-updates main
deb https://mirrors.sonic.net/pureos/repo/pureos/ amber-security main

You’re almost done. Hit the “Add Source” button and authenticate with your password. Finally, hit “Close” then “Reload” and you should have a snappy, speedy new mirror for your packages.

Packages are updated four times a day on the mirrors and more can be done if necessary, but this will be more than enough for now. Enjoy! And thank you very much to Sonic.