Can some one there help me with Terminal

[alfred]

Hi:

I'd like to make a copy of one of my Repository DVDs. When the DVD is in
the drive, it's Directory is /media/cdrom0/pool/main/*  In terminal:

I cd to:

cd /media/cdrom0/pool/main/* enter
.../media/cdrom0/pool/main/a$

Now each package of software sits in it's own Directory, and each
Directory can have more than one Package in it.

I'd like to open each of these directories in turn, and then copy each
Deb Package to a folder I'm calling disk1-main1 which is on my desktop.
Then open the next folder, and do the same, so that the destination
folder, does not have in it any sub directories, it has in it only the
Deb Files. I did this by hand for one Disk and it took all day! 

I think I'd be using cp but I'm not that sure just what all the
"Switches" do. I have used cp -rf before to copy Directories
recursively, but this is not what I want to do here. (I'm not so sure
about this.)

There may be about 3,500 deb files to copy like this, in just in one
DVDs' Main Directory then there is an other Directory called Restricted.
Once I get the hang of it, then I can empty out all the Sub-Directories
and harvest the Deb Files into one Directory of the Target Folder. 

What I did was:

....$ sudo cp -bpft /home/alf/Desktop/disk1-main1/ I makes a backup,
preserves the file name, and data about it, Forces the copying even if a
file is not able to be copied it will continue, and it puts all the
files into the target directory. Something is still missing, not sure
what. It comes up with an error saying that an operand is missing for
the destination. I'm not real sure what these switches do, because I
have no experience with them. 

Then I can list the files and even search them with Nautilus I can print
them out, so I know what is on the CDROM in its Directories. I can use
Gdebi to install the files, and what Files are not there, I go to the
bottom of that list of what it failed to fetch, and install that file
with Gdebi. Then I find the next file and install that one, and so on.
Its a bit of doing it by hand and a bit of terminal at the moment.

Also at a later time I'd like to make a script that would be an option,
for Synaptic. There is tab in preferences called Distributions, and
under it you can choose things like use the most updated file. I would
like to have it so that it does not do this, because this is why it
seeks Software on the Internet all the time, as it is newer than the
files on my Repository DVDs. I would like it to Choose the Jaunty files
that are available in Third Party Software Sources from CDROMS that were
added, and not look for the most updated file. Then I can use all the
files on my Repository Disks, and Synaptic will look after all the
dependencies, and it knows which CDROMS these are on, and will ask to
have that cdrom put into the drive, when needed. This is how it worked a
few versions ago. 

In just a few minutes I can install a 500 meg program and all it's
dependencies, so that would be my High Speed that I'm not able to get
there where I live. 

Any help with this would be appreciated.

TIA

Alfred!