Reliable software package installation is critical for maintaining and deploying Linux-based systems. However, failures—particularly under constrained bandwidth or unstable network conditions—pose a significant challenge. This thesis investigates strategies to mitigate such failures through caching, local mirroring, and system-level timeout configurations.

We evaluate three distinct network configurations: default APT using external repositories, NFS-mounted repositories, and local HTTP mirrors. Controlled experiments across varying bandwidth levels are conducted to assess installation reliability and performance. Additionally, we modify APT source code to analyze the impact of connection and read timeout settings.

Our findings reveal how repository configuration and timeout values influence installation outcomes, providing practical insights to improve package management systems under adverse network conditions.