When using Ubuntu, a proxy server for Gnome applications is set via System > Preferences > Network Proxy (set to manual; use the same proxy for all protocols; HTTP proxy should be proxy.utas.edu.au with port 8080; click Details and enter UTas username & password) however, at UTas it's a little different from using your ISP's proxy server. The UTas proxy service uses authentication ie. your username and password. This wouldn't be bad, except that it doesn't damn well work in Ubuntu (I'm using versions 7.10 and 8.04).
You may be served fairly well by setting this value, but applications like Synaptic Package Manager don't use the authentication part of the proxy settings, which means Ubuntu won't be updated and Add/Remove Applications won't work.
To fix, open Synaptic Package Manager ( System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager ). Once it's open, click Settings > Preferences, then Network, then Manual proxy configuration, then enter proxy.utas.edu.au for both the HTTP & FTP proxies, then click Authentication and enter your UTAS username/password. EDIT: 18th August: Set the proxy port to 8080 .
Now Applications > Add/Remove... will work, along with Synaptic Package Manager.
If anyone would like to comment and list the applications that don't work with proxies with authentication, please do.
What happens on a default install of 8.04:
Assuming the Network Proxy is set to proxy.utas.edu.au and port 8080, and correct authentication is entered.
- Synaptic Package Manager: Clicking Reload results in a "Could not download all repository indexes" window with a 407 Proxy Authentication Required message for each repository index. Fixed as described above.
- Firefox: On first open, will recognise that authentication is buggered and ask for username and password twice. Once entered, Firefox is fixed, though will re-ask for authentication each time Firefox is re-opened.
- Sound Juicer: Can't load album information. Silent fail. No workaround.
