Use apt-get behind a socks5 proxy

Nothing would be more frustrating than to install apt packages from sources outside of China, especially from PPA. If you try to update the c++ compiler to g++-6 or g++-7 through

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-toolchain-r/test -y
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install g++-7 -y

it may takes your hours to get it done.

But if you have a socks5 proxy out there, things will become better. The idea is to use apt-get behind a socks5 proxy.

tsocks and proxychains are common-used tools for this purpose. Here I choose proxychains over tsocks due to the DNS issue of tsocks mentioned by this.

1. install proxychains

   sudo apt-get install proxychains
   

2. setup for proxychains in /etc/proxychains.conf
   Since my socks5 proxy server is running at 127.0.0.1 through port 1080, my setting is

   socks5 127.0.0.1 1080
   

   at the last line of /etc/proxychains.conf.

3. using proxychaines with apt-get

   sudo proxychains apt-get update
   sudo proxychains apt-get install g++-7 -y
   

   Done in minutes!

You can also use the proxychains for other software as below:

sudo proxychains synaptic
proxychains julia

Enjoy!