Question about transfering DVD Package files to /var...

[alfred]

-----Original Message-----
From: Tony Yarusso <tonyyarusso at gmail.com>
Reply-to: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community
<ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: Question about transfering DVD Package files to /var...
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:58:33 -0600

On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 1:06 AM, alfred <alfred.s at nexicom.net> wrote:
>
> Hi All:
>
> I got some DVD Files from www.thelinuxstore.org  for Ubuntu 9.04. Using
> Eric's Find command, which I've now lost. :(  I emptied out all the
> folders, and put all the Packages into one Folder, on the desktop. There
> are now 26,939 .deb packages in one folder. I'd like these to be
> in /var/cache/apt/archives/ just copying them using sudo cp
> -rf /home/name/Desktop/deb-folder/* /var/cache/apt/archives, is too long
> of a list. Is there a better way to do this?

"too long of a list" for what?  Is cp actually throwing an error that
it can't handle such things?  Or are you just running out of disk
space / patience?  First, cp is probably not what you want - no sense
having two copies of all of that stuff.  Either use mv (to just move
everything over and not have them in /home any more), or us ln to make
links to them, either soft or hard depending on what you want to do
with them later.  Half the disk usage, all of the usefulness.

> I'm using Gdebi to do the installs at the moment, which is a bit clunky
> because on the desktop I have to manually search through the 26,939
> items to find the Packages needed for the install. I figure if they were
> in /var.... then I could use Synaptic to do the install. Synaptic tends
> to favour going out on the web to find things and not reading things off
> the DVD's.  With my snail speed Internet I get on good days about 3862
> B/sec so just about all the files are to big to download them, as it
> could take a year and a half to download all the files I need. :(.

Just putting stuff in the apt cache is kind of a clunky way to go
about things, but I guess it will do.  Anything with a newer version
in the repos will still be downloaded of course, which is likely what
you meant by your "Synaptic tends to favour going out on the web"
comment.  A better way of doing this would be to actually set up a
local mirror (with something like apt-mirror) or a caching proxy (like
squid or apt-cacher-ng).

 - Tony Yarusso

Hi Tony:

"too long of a list" for what?  Is cp actually throwing an error that
it can't handle such things?  Or are you just running out of disk space
/ patience? 


>The Disk is 320 Gigs, I'm using about 99 Gigs of it, and there are
about 87 Gigs left for Ubuntu 9.04. So I'm not running out of Disk
Space. cp is actually throwing out the error, even when there are just
about 2000 Package Files to Copy or Move over, instead of 26,939, it
says the list is too long.

Patience, sometimes I wait 35 years for something to happen...happen...happen. :)

>The ln command might actually work, I'll give it a try, this evening.  

A better way of doing this would be to actually set up a local mirror
(with something like apt-mirror) or a caching proxy (like squid or
apt-cacher-ng). 


>I've never made use of these Commands before, and My IP
does not provide Proxy, if it is needed. I'm not even sure what these
words mean??? Sounds like some sort of Marine Creature to me. :)

>Sometimes on this list the language, used seems to be other worldly.

>Guess I have a few things to look up now. :)

Alfred!