Hi Richard, Here's what I would probably do:
- create directories on your USB or partition for each of the DVDs - extract each ISO, and place the contents in the directories - if using a separate partition, mount it in your fstab at a location such as /mnt/deb, or if using a USB, just make sure to always mount it at the same location when you want to install something Then you can add a line such as this to your APT sources: deb [trusted=yes] file:///mnt/deb/DVD1/ buster main deb [trusted=yes] file:///mnt/deb/DVD2/ buster main deb [trusted=yes] file:///mnt/deb/DVD3/ buster main Now whenever you want to install something, you shouldn't have to worry about which DVD it was on, APT should just automatically find it. Jeremy On Fri, 5 Feb 2021 at 09:55, Richard Owlett <rowl...@cloud85.net> wrote: > I wish to do custom Debian install on a machine *WITHOUT*: > 1. functional mechanical CD/DVD drive. > 2. without internet access. > > One can purchase a flash drive containing ISO images of all installation > DVDs of the desired architecture. It is straight forward to do a default > install after copying dvd1.iso to a flash drive. > > Resulting problems include: > 1. undesired programs clutter machine (e.g. LibreOffice). > 2. project critical software cannot be installed as Synaptic > asks for a non-existent DVD be inserted in a non-existent drive. > > One vendor has a shell program which loop mounts the ISO files in such a > way that *IF* you have the purchased flash drive installed you can use > Synaptic. > > The Debian documentation does not appear to describe how apt &/or > Synaptic can access ISO files on dedicated partition. > > Are the instructions to create a "local repository" composed of > appropriate ISO files? > > TIA > > >
