And all of you should read this: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=466819 as I think it has an answer.

The comments, not the main article, that is.

Hopefully, they get the problem fixed and no permanent damage has been done by the power outage.

Seems to be back up now, im in the UK. Phew...

Sites are back up. Repository seem to be still down...

Thread title changed to reflect new developments

main repository up
archive.ubuntu.com

security repository up
security.ubuntu.com

mirrors mostly ok, some mirrors still down.

New title update again

Anyone have a mirror of the linked article? It seems to be down now. I'm curious as to the details behind the outage.

It's a power failure

For those who can't or don't want to wait for their mirrors to come up, there is a solution.

In a console, do the following:
sudo -s
[enter password]
cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.orig
nano sources.list (OR gedit sources.list)

then, replace the base URL of your mirror to archive.ubuntu.com, except of course if the URL is security.ubuntu.com.

save the file, exit your text editor.
apt-get update (OR run synaptic, and click reload)

there you go. When you can ping your server, run copy sources.list.orig back to sources.list. Keep a copy of the new sources.list if you feel you will need it in the future.

ok, they seem to be back up for me

sudo apt-get update works fine...

In which case, thread closed and renamed and unstickied.

Thanks all for keeping updates on this coming.