The Firefox web browser hangs or the synaptic package manager hangs when trying to download.

The apt-get, wget or other similar commands hang when trying to download.

You may have forgotten that you you are trying to download through a proxy server.

Provide your application or terminal command with the necessary proxy information.

Step 1. Find out how your ISP wants you to specify its proxy details

If necessary, you can find this out by checking your ISP's documentation / FAQ regarding proxies.
However, I simply checked my web browser connection settings on another machine.

I used my IE7 browser Tools>Internet Options>Connections>Lan Settings(>Advanced) options to find out my university's HTTP proxy address. Firefox keeps its proxy settings under Edit>Preferences>Network>Connection.

E.g. A ficticious university's proxy details are:

http://proxy.myuniversity.edu:3256

It's Proxy server address is http://proxy.myuniversity.edu
It's Proxy server port is 3256

However you find out the proxy details, you should make a note of your connection's specific details for future use.

Step 2. Tell Xandros.

This will vary depending on your need.

If you use the default Firefox browser choose Edit>Preferences>Network>Connection.
Enter the information as directed by your ISP or enter the specific proxy address.
In my case I can either use Auto-detect proxy settings for this network or Manual proxy configuration

For the above example HTTP Proxy will contain: proxy.myuniversity.edu and Port will contain: 3256

Open a command window using ctrl+alt+t
If you anticipate only using a single superuser command then use the sudo command

E.g.
/home/user> sudo synaptic
/home/user> exit

I find it much easier to open a shell using sudo, so that I do not have to keep on entering sudo. That way all my commands are run as a superuser until the shell is closed.

E.g.
/home/user> sudo bash
yoursystem:/home/user> export ….
yoursystem:/home/user> apt-get ….
yoursystem:/home/user> exit
/home/user> exit

Open a command window with
ctrl+alt+t
Start up the package manager
/home/user> sudo synaptic

Now you can manually set HTTP and FTP proxy settings under
Settings>Preferences>Network

In my case I used the same address for both HTTP and FTP proxies.
HTTP Proxy: proxy.myuniversity.edu
Port: 3256
FTP Proxy: proxy.myuniversity.edu
Port: 3256

You may need to use Alt drag technique to move the open window higher to confirm your changes.

Open a command window with
ctrl+alt+t
Make the proxy settings available
/home/user> sudo bash
yoursystem:/home/user> export http_proxy=“http://proxy.myuniversity.edu:3256”
yoursystem:/home/user> Now you can issue your apt-get, wget and other commands
….
yoursystem:/home/user> exit
/home/user> exit

wget also permits you to set the proxy server details as part of its command line input
/home/user> sudo wget –proxy http://proxy.myuniversity.edu:3256

This is a beta release of this wiki page. It still needs some graphics. I am sure that there are additional techniques available .. but this first version is what I needed to do to survive my first web accesses, first updates to Xandros and my first application installations. mekiAus.