apt-fast : A Bash Script to Speed Things Along

[ilikenwf]

12/22/2011: I've moved development of apt-fast to github. Note that the current version I have not tested yet, so I need testers...and users...and people to improve apt-fast and put in pull requests

https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast

I wrote this script that combines the power of the axel download manager with the stability of apt-get. All you have to do is make sure axel is installed from the repos, or from here, and then put this script somewhere, name it apt-fast, and chmod +x on it. Then, call it like you would apt-get or aptitude, just by sudo ./apt-fast dist-upgrade, or whatever it is you want to install or do.

If you have any improvements to this puppy, please share them so I can share them from my website. Right now, I don't have many variables set, so you can only install single packages one or two at a time. I believe an array would be a good fix for that, but I don't have time right now. A further improvement would be the addition of auto complete, like apt-get has, so that you don't have to type entire package names. Whatever the case, enjoy, and don't use this too often, as it really rapes the package servers.