On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 01:51:45PM +0200, Raffaele Morelli wrote: > Hi you all, > > I have 3 debian boxes (two i386 and one amd64) which are not connected to > the network so I usually do upgrades by downloading weekly generated dvd iso > images, burning images to a dvd-rw and running apt-cdrom add && apt-upgrade. > > My question is: can I fool apt in order to avoid burning dvd-rw each week? > > I am not lazy but I do this regularly and burning two dvd-iso for different > archs sometimes makes me crazy because of errors, dvd's failures or data > corruption. > > Any suggestion is appreciated.
I too am interested in this. If there was some way to simulate an "apt-get update" by downloading the Packages.gz file and putting that on the non-networked machine and doing the magic to that file the same way that "apt-get update" does on a networked machine. Then all you need to do is: 1. apt-get dist-upgrade 2. answer no. 3. take note of the packages it wants to download. 4. Download the packages from a network machine + go to packages.debian.org/<package-name> + download .deb + put on USB stick. 5. Put downloaded packages into /var/cache/apt/archives/ of non-networked machine 6. Run "apt-get dist-upgrade" When it says "Need to get 0MB/XXXMB of archives." - answer yes. It will now dist-upgrade normally Have a look at apt-zip for steps 1-6. It seems to be non-trivial to simulate an "apt-get update" :( This doesn't work: :( I wonder if you can copy: /var/lib/apt/lists/debian.attica.net.nz_debian_dists_lenny_contrib_binary-i386_Packages [..] /var/lib/apt/lists/www.debian-multimedia.org_dists_lenny_main_binary-i386_Packages from a networked machine to a non-networked machine? -- Chris. ====== I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. -- Stephen F Roberts -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org