[gNewSense-users] how to best backup my downloaded files?

[andrei raevsky]

Hi everybody,

I only have dial-up so each update or application downloads comes
*very* slowly and I really would hate to have to do it all over again.
Also - I would love to have the possibility to install gNewSense  1.1
on another computer and just stick a CD in to add all the other
applications previously downloaded.

Now, I know that my downloaded files are in /var/cache/apt/archives files.

Also - Paul kindly sent me the DVD of the full gNewSense  1.1 sources
(along with a gNewSense 1.1 and a gNewSense-KDE 1.1) ==>>which, by the
way, I am would gladly snailmail to anyone needing them<<==

So help me out here: which of the two should I use, the
/var/cache/apt/archives archives which I could burn to a CD or the DVD
of the sources and, even more importantly, *how* do I use them.

I thought of mixing external and internal sources (with a CD with
/var/cache/apt/archives burned to it) but Paul warned me that it is a
very bad idea to mix sources.  Is there any way to add either 1) the
downloaded application after the first install of gNewSense or 2) how
could I best use the gNewSense source archive DVD Paul sent me?  Or is
there no safe way to do this and is it the *only* option to 'apt-get
update && apt-get dist-upgrade'?

Many thanks for any help,

Andrei