How to copy packages...

[Peter Hoffmann]

Andrea Giuliano wrote:
> Sorry, this is probably a most stupid question!
> 
> I'm not very familiar to Debian packages, so I'm wondering how can one 
> copy a package just as I do under Fedora or RPM-based systems.
> 
> An RPM file contains all files needed by an application or whatever, but 
> I guess DEB packages are different. At least, I see that a quite big 
> application like GCompris has a rather big (several Mbs) RPM file, while 
> the corresponding DEB package is just 230K long.
> 
> I guess that if I just copied the latter on a floppy and bring it home, 
> I would not get GCompris installed at all.
> 
> Since I have to installa GCompris on a PC without net card, nor modem, I 
> cannot use apt-get as usual.
> 
> How else can I do?
> 

Have a look at apt-zip:

Description: Update a non-networked computer using apt and removable media
  These scripts simplify the process of using dselect and apt on a
  non-networked Debian box, using removable media like ZIP floppies.
  One generates a `fetch' script (supporting backends such as wget and
  lftp, in a modular, extensible way) to be run on a host with better
  connectivity, check space constraints of your removable media, and
  then install the package on your Debian box.
  .
  Note on current version: space-checking is not done and spanning
  multiple disks is not yet supported


-- 
Peter Hoffmann <ph at peter-hoffmann.com>