Make sure to use the best server for your location.
Open Software Sources
Press Alt+F2, type gksu software-properties-gtk, and enter your password. (Alternatively, select
Settings... at the lower left corner of the Update Manager, or go to Settings > Repositories in Synaptic).
- That's for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, which you are not running. In later releases, you can just run software-properties-gtk and when you make changes, PolicyKit will authenticate you.
- Most people using newer releases have the Software Center and not Synaptic. In the Software Center, you would go to Edit > Software Sources....
- The Update Manager is unchanged, but in new releases is called the Software Updater.
Change the Download Server
In the
Ubuntu Software tab of the Software Sources window, there is a drop-down menu labeled
Download from. Select your regional server. For example, I'm in the United States and it looks like this on my 11.10 machine:
Software Sources window showing Sever for United States being selected in the "Download from" drop-down menu.
You may see other servers listed in that short list (like the server you currently have set up).
You can use the
Main server too but it is almost always considerably slower than using your regional server. (At least in the United States, anyway.)
If you want to use another mirror, you can look through a list of mirrors by clicking
Other....
Source: ask ubuntu