Please allow upgrade from local ISP archives

[R (Chandra) Chandrasekhar]

Binary package hint: update-manager

When I tried upgrading Kubuntu from 7.10 to 8.04 in Australia, it disables my local ISP's K/Ubuntu archives and uses the national archive for Australia.

It then reports this:
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Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/Release.gpg Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/i18n/Translation-en_AU.bz2 Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/restricted/i18n/Translation-en_AU.bz2 Could not connect to au.archive.ubuntu.com:80 (211.29.132.173), connection timed out
Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/universe/i18n/Translation-en_AU.bz2 Could not connect to au.archive.ubuntu.com:80 (211.29.132.173), connection timed out
Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy/multiverse/i18n/Translation-en_AU.bz2 Could not connect to au.archive.ubuntu.com:80 (211.29.132.173), connection timed out
Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/Release.gpg Could not connect to au.archive.ubuntu.com:80 (211.29.132.173), connection timed out
Failed to fetch http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-updates/main/i18n/Translation-en_AU.bz2 Connection failed
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I think the Australian archive was being hammered and could not respond fast enough.

I have an ISP, iiNeT, in Australia who has update their archive. It is up-to-date, fast, and free (not counted in my download quota). The update manager had commented out those entries. Instead, if it had changed the "gutsy" to "hardy" and tried my local ISP's archive, it would not have failed and I would be reporting success rather than failure.

I am happy to work with you to help achieve this if you are willing to put teh effort nto it.

Many thanks.