It started with the wish to have an up-to-date mirrorlist during the installation of ArcoLinux.
Calamares provides us a great variety of applications to download. It is now more than ever important to get the best Arch Linux servers for your country. The alias mirror would update the mirrorlist. But we wanted an automated service for it so users can focus on Calamares.
The faster the Arch Linux servers, the faster ArcoLinux will be installed.
We created an extra service in the package arcolinux-system-config-git that will quietly check during boot-time which Arch Linux servers are the fastest today. This happens automatically in the background and you will never see it. We see the result in /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist.
Randomly during the day an /etc/cron.daily task is requesting the best Arch Linux servers. This cron job has been working for months already. We will decide later if we keep this cron job or not (arcolinux-cron-git).
Practical example
If you start working at 6.00AM you get a new mirrorlist from arcolinux-system-config-git and during the day you will get an update of the mirrorlist from the cron service.
You may at any time use our aliases mirror, mirrors, mirrord and mirrora to possibly the improve connection speed.
LAPTOP USERS
During calamares installation
During the installation of ArcoLinux (Calamares) make sure you have internet.
First advice is plug in a lan cable and stay connected then everything goes automatically.
Second advice is use the networkmanager icon in the bottom right to connect to wifi.
Third advice is use nmtui to connect to wifi via terminal.
Then you need to update the Arch Linux servers.
Type in a terminal
sudo update-mirrors
or
one of the aliases
mirror
mirrora
mirrors
mirrord
Now you are ready to install the packages provided in Calamares.