[GLLUG] Ubuntu Packages

[Marr]

On Friday 18 January 2008 4:25pm, Adam Jensen wrote:
> Marr wrote:
> > Sadly, I'm stuck with a dial-up connection -- no DSL or cable modem
> > availability where I'm at. Even worse, I've been unable to consistently
> > (especially at any sort of normal modem speeds) get the internal modem on
> > that laptop with Ubuntu to work. It's quite maddening. I guess I should
> > hook up an external RS-232 modem and an RS-232/USB adapter and try that
> > sometime to update my Ubuntu installation.
>
> You mentioned before that you installed from CD.  If you still have that
> disc available, Ubuntu should be able to install the packages included
> in the "build-essential" meta-package from that disc.  It should already
> be set up to do so since it was your installation medium.

Aha -- right you are! Thank you. I wrongly assumed (since Ubuntu had no 
install-time option to specify a subset) that everything on the CD would have 
been installed to the hard disk drive.

I was able to pop the installation CD-R in, and just run:

   apt-get install build-essential

And it successfully installed, since everything it needed was available on the 
CD-R.

I wish Ubuntu would just install everything (or make it an option at 
installation time). HDD space is cheap and getting cheaper. On Slackware, at 
install time, you can fine-tune the installation by individual package or by 
groupings of packages or you can tell it to install everything (which is what 
I do almost every time).

Unfortunately, with the compiler now working as it should, I find that it 
seems like the Slackware way ('./configure; make; sudo make install') isn't 
really compatible with the Ubuntu 'package' paradigm. I decided instead to 
just install a few things using the 'package' method.

> > Is there some way to use another PC (e.g. the one at a relative's house
> > with DSL) to just download an Ubuntu package (i.e. without installing)
> > and then transfer that to the Ubuntu PC for installation? I suppose I
> > should be looking into 'apt-get', which I've never really used, despite
> > many years of GNU/Linux use. I'm just not familiar with the 'apt' system
> > and every reference to using it seems to always blithely assume that the
> > machine on which you want to install has a broadband connection.
>
> The individual .deb files can be downloaded and installed manually using
> "sudo dpkg --install <package.deb>".

OK, good, thanks. That does seem to work. Unfortunately, while some packages 
install pretty easily, others (unsurprisingly) introduce loads of 
dependencies which themselves have further dependencies. Kino (the video 
editor) only required one other package that wasn't already installed (or on 
the CD-R, I suppose). On the other hand, I also tried to download the  
Emacs '.deb' files on my main (Slackware) PC (with the working modem) and 
transfer them to the Internet-starved laptop running Ubuntu. It quickly 
became a nightmare with all the dependencies and sub-dependencies.

Side rant: I wonder why Ubuntu doesn't just include Emacs on the CD-R?

> These packages do have some dependencies of their own; you might have to
> follow the buck as it gets passed around.

Man, you sure hit the nail on the head there! :^)

I don't see any obvious way to download all of the required packages (e.g. on 
another far-away PC with a high-speed Internet connection) and have them in 
one nice big file, with all dependencies included. I envision a royal 
nightmare because I don't have any easy way to ensure that all the 
dependencies are satisfied until I'm back at my Ubuntu PC, ready to install 
all my '.deb' files, only to discover that I'm missing some packages too 
large to grab over my dial-up connection.

On Friday 18 January 2008 4:49pm, Chris Chan wrote:
> The reason build-essential itself is so small is because it ś a
> metapackage - a package whose sole purpose is to have a lot of
> dependencies so that installing all those packages can be accomplished
> with a single short apt-get. And you can always download the .debs
> from ubuntu package search and transfer them to a flash drive for
> installation on your computer.

Yeah, I see what you're saying -- good advice. Unfortunately, these 
metapackages sort of aggravate the situation. That is, say I travel 30 miles 
to get a broadband connection at a friend's or relative's house, only to get 
back home and find a missing dependency. Arggghhh!!! :^)

I can see where all this would work quite nicely if the target machine has a 
fast Internet connection. But it seems to break down really badly when that 
is not the case. Maybe I'm missing some way to get around this, but it sure 
seems untenable to me.

Anyway, many thanks to everyone who responded! I appreciate all the 
information and I've learned some useful things that will definitely help me 
acclimate to Ubuntu.

Regards,
Bill Marr