[Nottingham] apt-walkabout or similar

[Robert Hart]

On Tue, 2005-09-27 at 11:08 +0100, Michael Erskine wrote:
> How do other members distribute updates for their apt-based distributions? 
> Ideally I'd like to download all updates on a machine with access to 
> plentiful bandwidth, store them on some removable media (preferably with 
> changelogs too), and provide updates to similarly configured machines with 
> less or no bandwidth. I've just stumbled across apt-walkabout and I'm 
> currently studying the manpages. I'm looking for "standard practices" if 
> there are any!

that sounds useful. I've been using apt-move to create a mini-debian
mirror of the stuff I use for a while, this means I only download most
stuff once. Doesn't help much if your machines aren't networked to each
other.

Before I had broadband at home I would use something like:

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
cp -a /var/lib/apt /mnt/removablemedia/lists
cp /var/apt/cache/archives/*.deb /mnt/removablemedia/packages
apt-get clean

at work and then:

cp -a /mnt/removablemedia/lists /var/lib/apt
cp /mnt/removablemedia/packages/*.deb /var/apt/cache/archives/
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

at home.

Works as long as the size of the update is less than the size of the
removable media, and you remember to do it every time.

-- 
Robert Hart <enxrah at nottingham.ac.uk>
University of Nottingham


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