system updating with synaptic - shortcuts

[John]

david wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> In order to avoid a 400MB+ download I have /var/cache/apt on cd. So,
> when I hose my install, I just reinstall and copy the cd to /var/cache.
> However, I still have to add the sources to synaptic and click on the
> Refresh button. What does synaptic download when I do this and where
> does it keep them and can I add these files to the cd and copy them in
> manually? The desired result would be synaptic updating the system
> from /var/cache/apt without a net connection being present.
> Is this possible?
> 
> many thanks
> 
> David
> 
> 

What I expect to do RSN is run dpkg-scanpackages to create my own 
CD-bound repository for much the same poipose.