Fellow Users,
Apologies if this post ends up in the wrong list. First time in 18 months
of Linuxaholism that I have had to seek group therapy.
In the wee hours over the last six weeks, I have downloaded SLINK from
ftp.aarnet.edu.au in an effort to save bandwidth over the numerous installs
I plan to implement on four boxes here at home. The distribution is now
hosted on 192.168.1.1 (Calista), which runs Mandrake Linux 6.0 (a 586
Redhat derivative) and I am ready to install Debian to a workstation at
192.168.1.16 (Lennon), currently a windozer with 500Mb available for
the initial Debian installation.
The directory tree on Server Calista is:
/ orb / folk / stor / debian / dists / stable / main / binary-i386 /
with the .deb files from 'binary-all' combined with the i386 directory
replacing the sym links usually found there. The tree includes:
admin, base, comm, devel, doc, editors, interpreters, libs, mail, math,
misc, net, news, oldlibs, otherosfs, shells, sound, tex, text, utils, web,
and x11.
In addition to these sub-directories, I have downloaded the three files:
Packages, Packages.gz, and Release,
from the Aarnet mirror, and placed these in the binary-i386 directory.
The Calista ftpd defaults to the root dir and ftp access from Lennon is
possible with either the win95 client (LeapFTP) or the base debian ftp
client, and all directories are set to 755 with files being 711, all owned
by non-privleged user, moran.
After installing the base system and logging in to Debian on Lennon, I
run 'dselect' as root and choose access method 'apt'. When asked for
the host, I reply:
ftp://192.168.1.1/orb/folk/stor/debian<ENTER>
and on being prompted for [stable], I hit:
<ENTER>
When the [main contrib non-free] prompt appears, I type:
main<ENTER>
The dselect program then returns me to the main menu, whereupon when
selecting the Update option (number 2 if I recall), I discover that I have
failed to provide dselect with a viable means of finding a Packages.gz ...
Substituting http for ftp, I get a 404 error, which at least tells me that
something is going right (!?!). I have tried copying Package files to
other parts of the tree, and moved the directories around between
what would intuitively seem to suit the dselect program, (ie, without the
dists/ directory and so forth) and the structure of the Aarnet mirror as
I have described above, but without success. I have also tried leading
and trailing forward slashes in a pseudo-systematic fashion. The FAQ
and the January and February posts to this list include a number of
posts pertaining to apt and dselect, but I could not find any clues therein.
Having attempted to replicate those parts of the Debian tree that seem
important for what I am trying to achieve, and with little familiarity with
the dselect program, I would appreciate any suggestions from those
who have encountered, and hopefully solved this dilemma.
Oh, finally, I do not run NFS on Calista, and although it may provide the
fastest solution to my problem, I believe it would tend to defeat the
purpose of this exercise somewhat, if that is in anyway understandable ...
God Bless,
Sean Moran
Fremantle,
Western Australia.
