Timeouts in apt?

[sci-fi guy]

My ISP likes to kill transfers of large files, and my only option is to restart the download. I have moved all my repository listings to ftp, so the downloads pick up where they left off, but I still need to babysit the connection so that I can restart it when it quits.

How can I get apt to automatically time out and resume the connection after it has been stalled for a few seconds?


EDIT: And while I am asking, is there any way to force apt to download multiple files in parallel rather than serial?

[polmir]

Type in terminal:
man apt
man apt-get
man apt_preferences
man apt.conf
man apt-configand try to look for something in these instructions.