Offline Package installation's

Software & Operating Systems Linux
1

I have satellite internet and it’s horrible. I want to be able to download updates and apps for deb distros, rpm distros, pac distros and install offline.

Not sure how much hardware matters, luckily my laptop and desktop both have an amd 2700 and rx vega 56 so they’re pretty similar.

sudo apt-get install packagename --download-only

puts package in /var/cache/apt/archives

I can get both updates and apps this way, but installing is a mess, first because I’m using dpkg -i and have to input every package

example

sudo dpkg -i audacious_3.10.1-1_amd64.deb libaudcore5_3.10.1-1_amd64.deb libbs2b0_3.1.0+dfsg-2.2_amd64.deb libmodplug1_1%3a0.8.9.0-2_amd64.deb audacious-plugins_3.10.1-1_amd64.deb libaudgui5_3.10.1-1_amd64.deb libfluidsynth1_1.1.11-1build1_amd64.deb libsdl2-2.0-0_2.0.9+dfsg1-1ubuntu1.19.04.1_amd64.deb audacious-plugins-data_3.10.1-1_all.deb libaudtag3_3.10.1-1_amd64.deb libmms0_0.6.4-3_amd64.deb

This does get some apps to launch, but they always lack some dependencies and it’s tedious.

On Fedora I can do

sudo dnf download vlc --resolve

so far that has worked perfectly, though I need to do further testing

but the big BUT is I don’t know how to download fedora update,

example being Fedora 30 has an update that’s over a GB that moves fedora up a kernel that allows me to run a specific app

If I could figure out how to download the update and install later on another machine that would be a full fix for Fedora based distros.

I haven’t down any research and pacman distros as of yet for offline installation.

This is my one big pet peeve with linux, until download speeds are 5 M/B’s everywhere on the planet offline installation is a must.

Any help would be appreciated

2

sudo apt-get install packagename --download-only puts package in /var/cache/apt/archives

I can get both updates and apps this way, but installing is a mess, first because I’m using dpkg -i and have to input every package

You don’t need to manually install the packages on Debian distros after they’ve been downloaded. The install command uses the local package cache first if available.

sudo apt install libreoffice --download-only; sudo apt install -y libreoffice

So long as you don’t run apt clean or apt autoclean, those packages will continue to be used locally until an apt update signals there are newer packages.

If you have multiple boxes, the apt-mirror and apt-cacher-ng packages might be useful. apt-mirror allows you to run a local mirror. This will let you have a complete copy of all the packages in the repo, stored locally. Very handy if your internet connection is also unstable as well as slow.

apt-cache-ng is useful if you have multiple systems to update that all run the same version of Debian. The first time a package is fetched, apt-cache stores it locally and all subsequent requests will respond using the cached version. This lets you update all your systems (physical, virtual, chroot, et cetera) with a single fetch per package.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the info, I kind worked my way to what your talking about, but I pulled the packages out of the archives. Could I place packages in an offline machine at /var/cache/apt/archives and then sudo apt install package as normal do I need to do something for the system to know I want to install package from archives? This would would include update/upgrade for me.

I was liking both ubuntu and pop os!, but for some reason lutris games freeze when I shift, ctl, super, to second monitor and sometimes stops me from being able to super out of the game window.

This is a none issue in fedora 29/30

I got Davinci Resolve 16 and capture card working in ubuntu/pop os!

But I care more about being able to super game windows to any monitor so my hacked Davinci resolve 15.3.1 with no capture card works for me on fedora 29/30.

Think I’ll make a thread on that, I’ve also got a handle on fedora offline download with sudo dnf download vlc --resolve, but I did have issue’s with trying to install and update after downloading that way.

Still have Manjaro to research on which I have no understanding of for offline download, but it’s support for AMD with Davinci Resolve is pretty horrible anyhow.

Thanks for the help