EVM Installation interrupted due to broken mirror for Ubuntu 18.04

[Varvara Karpova]

Hi Andrey and all!

I am trying to perform the advanced installation fro sagecell server in an EVM following

 https://github.com/sagemath/sagecell/tree/master/contrib/vm 

As I run ./build_host.sh, the installation goes well until I get to the mirror choice for the Ubuntu archive: 

I tried almost all of the suggested mirrors from the list in the console, but none works. Then I found the page

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archivemirrors 

that lists current mirrows; in particular I could theoretically use the following (I am located in Zurich):

However, when I update $LOCATION in build_host.sh  to https://mirror.init7.net/ubuntu/dists/bionic/main/installer-amd64/

I continue getting the same Bad archive mirror screen during the installation.

So my questions are:

1. Do you know where I can find a link to a valid mirror for Ubuntu 18.04?
2. If Ubuntu 18.04 is too outdated, which OS variant could I use instead when installing an EVM for sagecell, and could you maybe suggest a $LOCATION for it?

Thank you very much! 

Best regards,

Varvara

[Andrey Novoseltsev]

Hi Varvara!

I've added a comment a bit ago that " The automating scripts are not tested since 2018 - please adjust them to current versions and your needs." I no longer have access to the machine which I used to test these and even a few years ago there were some problems with new OS, I think.

What I would recommend is to create a virtual machine manually, while you can generally follow the scripts to see what has to be installed inside of it and how interaction with the outside world may be managed. Alternatively, if you can dedicate a whole machine to SageMathCell, you can skip this step completely.

In any case I would strive to use Ubuntu 22.04 as it is used on public servers and so there should be no surprises with package names and versions.

Best,

Andrey