Medibuntu Repository Down - What To Do?

Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu) is a repository of packages that cannot be included into the Ubuntu distribution for legal reasons (copyright, license, patent, etc).

Just when I was about to publish the "What To Do After A Fresh Ubuntu Install Script - New Version Released" post, I noticed that the Medibuntu main server is down. So I search for some mirrors.

Note: medibuntu.org is working, just packages.medibuntu.org is not

This wouldn't have been a very big deal normally, but with Ubuntu 10.04 final release due in a few days, a lot of people are upgrading to Lucid and they need Medibuntu.


I fixed this in the script by adding 3 mirrors, but here is how to manually fix it:


Firstly you'll have to find out where your Medibuntu repo is located. Run this in a terminal:

ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

If the file exists, press ALT + F2 and enter:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

If running the above command lists the medibuntu.list as not found ("ls: cannot access /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list: No such file or directory"), then do the following:

Press ALT + F2 and enter:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Then for both cases, search for the lines which point to the main Medibuntu repository, which should look something like this:

deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free
deb-src http://packages.medibuntu.org/ lucid free non-free

Of course, if you're not using Lucid, it's going to say "karmic" or "jaunty", etc.

Replace these 2 lines with any of these 3 mirrors:

Mirror 1:

deb http://mirrors.ucr.ac.cr/medibuntu/ lucid free non-free
deb-src http://mirrors.ucr.ac.cr/medibuntu/ lucid free non-free

Mirror 2:

deb http://mirror.oscc.org.my/medibuntu/ lucid free non-free
deb-src http://mirror.oscc.org.my/medibuntu/ lucid free non-free

Mirror 3:

deb ftp://ftp.leg.uct.ac.za/pub/linux/medibuntu/ lucid free non-free
deb-src ftp://ftp.leg.uct.ac.za/pub/linux/medibuntu/ lucid free non-free

If you're not using Lucid, replace "lucid" in the above lines with "karmic", "jaunty" or whatever Ubuntu version you're using.

Then save the file and do an update to your sources.list:

sudo apt-get update

Update: there's an even easier way to fix this (thanks to defrysk). Apparently only the DNS are having issues so you can fix Medibuntu by keeping original address and pasting this in a terminal:

echo "88.191.101.8 packages.medibuntu.org" | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts