Gentoo graybeards (you know who you are) are undoubtedly familiar with the mirrorselect utility. This simple program (script, actually) attempts to determine which Gentoo mirror is the fastest for you. By specifying a -D option, it will even try to download a 100 KB file to measure the throughput.

The problem is: It’s not 100% reliable.

For instance, I just found out that the #1 mirror that mirrorselect chose… to put it mildly, sucked royally. Very slow. Too damn slow.

The #2 mirror… produced an error when I tried downloading stage3 tarball: File not found (WTF!)

I finally found a very good mirror … it’s #4 in mirrorselect’s result.

So, as you can see, you can’t trust mirrorselect’s output just like that; you have take it with not a grain of salt, but a pinch of salt. A hefty pinch of salt.

In other words: After mirrorselect produced a list of mirrors that it thinks are the best, continue with trying to download the stage3 tarball. Lest you’ll be unpleasantly surprised.

That’s my fair warning to you. Until next dispatch, keep strong!