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

[Paul O'Malley]

andrei raevsky wrote:
> 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'?
> 
Supporting a friend who had dial up I used to do something like this:
mkdir ~andrei/apt-stuff
cp -R /var/cache/apt/archives ~andrei/apt-stuff
tar cvf apttar23Feb2007.tar /apt-stuff

then when I installed the freshly made box I would populate the the
/var/cache/apt/archives/
with the tarball thus:

cd /media/cdrom0; sudo cp * /var/cache/apt/archives/.
then I would do:

cd /var/cache/apt/archives

tar cvf apttar23Feb2007

sudo apt-get update

and then start installing the stuff I wanted - it is messy

the other way that is suggested is

"apt-zip"

I have not used it myself as the need to do these things has diminished.

To install the copy of it you might burn separately you can do this:

cd to wherever you have the program.deb

sudo dpkg -i apt-zipFullVersionNumber.deb



Regards,

Paul