Whenever I update I monitor my internet connection. I start at less than 1MB/s until 30% then jump to 75MB/s until 66% then drop back to less than 1MB/s. This behavior is consistant.
What is going on?
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I will guess it is a single server somewhere, and not a set of mirrors at this point. Plus one big file. And maybe I was grabing updates, along with others, getting in your way 
If you haven’t, you might try enabling the delta updates to cut down the size of the download.
If you have, and they are still slow, you can report it as mentioned.
This speed shift seems a lot like what I see on my budget storage SSD that has no dram cache when copying large files (videos, Steam games, ISO images) but I don’t think that this is necessarily relevant.
The deltas are vastly smaller, and very quick for me.
I tried the Delta Updates and the speed is noticably worse. Never more than 7mb/s.
Did the total download time decrease using delta updates ?
Or the total size downloaded ?
Is the total time acceptable ?
Server speed is mostly about server capacity of kde-linux.
Speed is not an strict objective as it is very costly to improve (additional servers, cdn…).
Decreasing download time is the end goal, and reducing the total data will improve things for all users, those with high-speed or low-speed/tether internet access.
delta-updates might still be more CPU-intensive of the server or less IO-optimized, so this might not be a silver bullet.
The servers capacity only rest on donations, by sponsors or individuals.
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Speed is indeed a factor. I tried the Delta, and it was even slower. I read about users who left OpenSuse because of the speed of their servers. Perhaps this should be a consideration for KDE-Linux.
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Odd. Before the deltas were available, I did stop using KDE Linux as I was still on a capped mobile data plan, so it was the size, not the speed, here in regional Australia. I don’t recall the speeds being any slower than expected, and it isn’t now that I am finally on a stable but lower speed fiber, errr fibre connection.
The delta updates are very slow when not all of the mirrors have synced. Images are typically posted roughly 3 AM UTC time, and it’s wise to wait 2 or 3 hours before trying to update.
This is something we do plan to improve by not advertising updates until all mirrors have synced.
See the related issue of "Input/output error" update errors when updating before mirrors have synced or on slow or flaky network connections (#304) · Issues · KDE Linux / KDE Linux · GitLab
I live in Tel Aviv and have a 1gb connection. You get use to things being instant. Maybe I’m just spoiled.
It turns out that delta updates themselves are just slow too, even when mirrors are fully synced. I’m seeing like a 10x slowdown compared to the old style updates.
Of course the size is more than 10x smaller, so it’s still a net speed win in addition to a massive bandwidth win. But yeah, clearly this is an area that needs some performance tuning.
I’m on a good connection. The download stops at 30% and times out with “Input/Output error”.
This is the first image I’m trying to download with delta downloads. Perhaps I should install it without delta, will it download the diff chunks to use for the next upgrade?
See the two known issues at https://community.kde.org/KDE_Linux/Delta#Status
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The same issue, updating start after several tries.