I have an application with a .deb package to install it. If the user is online, everything works fine. However, I need to support installing on offline computers from a CD-ROM, and I can only assume default applications are installed, i.e. I can't tell them, "First download XYZ and then it will work." My CD-ROM needs to be self-contained. (Users have little or no internet connectivity … think "jungles of Papua New Guinea.") The CD-ROM includes all the necessary dependency packages, assuming a stable base install of the operating system.
This is for 11.10. (Hopefully it doesn't all change again in 12.04.)
I have tried:
- Ubuntu Software Center – The "install" button is disabled if you are offline. This is true even if you add the CD as a software source.
- Using dpkg directory – This does not resolve the dependencies. I would never be able to explain to our users how to manually resolve the dependencies in a command line.
Some of the tools that would help (keryx, gdebi, aptoncd, synaptic) are not included in the default install of 11.10.
Is there any way to tell aptitude to get and resolve packages from a CD-ROM while offline?
Basically, if a user out in the middle of nowhere installs Ubuntu from a plain ol' Desktop CD, he should then be able to install my application from a different CD. What needs to be on that CD to make that possible?
Best Answer
You have to install the .deb , and the dependencies, with dpkg. As long as you have all the dependencies, you should be able to install them with dpkg.
If you are having a problem, pastebin the command and output you are getting.
A more automated method would be to use Aptoncd
http://aptoncd.sourceforge.net/