Scott Patterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: DZM> Scott Patterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: SP> Then, put the helixcode source in your /etc/apt/sources.list SP> file. Run a "apt-get update", "apt-get install task-helix-gnome" SP> and that should install everything...I hope. YMMV:) SP> DZM> Well, you still need a valid Packages file. And I doubt you DZM> actually want to maintain a mirror of the Helix site on your DZM> local machine, which is basically what this procedure would wind DZM> up doing. SP> SP> Why would this be a mirror of the Helix code site. SP> SP> Upon "apt-get update" you download the latest Packages.gz file SP> (shouldn't take too long). Then, upon "apt-get install/upgrade SP> task-helix-gnome" is does the update.
I'm basically saying that you don't *need* the Packages.gz file from Helix, especially if you know you have all of the .deb files you need. So you can skip the intermediate stage of downloading and/or regenerating the Packages file here. (All of the information in the Packages file is also in the individual packages; dpkg-scanpackages will create the Packages file from the packages.) If you insist on using a Packages file, you'll either need to create it by hand or duplicate the exact directory structure listed in that file -- which basically means mirroring Helix. In any case, running 'dpkg -i *.deb' will get the packages installed without going through APT. (To be fair, though, if you're a regular dselect user, creating a Packages file does get you the advantage of having the files be listed as something other than "Obsolete/Local". The same is probably true of the other dpkg/APT frontends.) SP> Now, things should happen in this order, I believe. First it SP> checks to see if you have latest version already installed. If SP> that is the case, you're done. Then, it checks for already SP> downloaded versions (zip disk), that are not installed. This is SP> where you put any updates you need! If it's in the cache, it won't SP> download it. Finally, apt-get will download any file not SP> installed, or not found in the cache. If this is wrong, please SP> explain why. All this is correct. After this, APT will run 'dpkg -i' on the files in /var/cache/apt/archives; nothing stops you from doing it yourself (and skipping over APT). -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.mit.edu/~dmaze/ "Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal." -- Abra Mitchell
