Stop using APT, start using NALA instead. Indeed, Nala comes with a neat interface, that shows you the important stuff without all the APT clutter and nonsense. It’s way faster and switching from APT to NALA is really easy. Check out this short introduction by Chris Titus:
It requires python3 in a recent version, so you need at least Ubuntu 20+
In my tests, I ran into python dependency errors when installing nala. Installing nala-legacy solved the problem for me.
nala history gives you nicely formatted list of which packages you have installed and when you did that.
With nala fetch the tool finds the fastest package mirrors and let’s you pick your favourite ones, based on their speed. I chose the top 3, saved the list, and then ran nala update and nala upgrade. Who knows, but maybe installing nala was the last time I used apt altogether.
