getting packages via Windows

[mikesorrelle]

Is there a Web utility for recursively getting packages?

I'm working in a restrictive environment, and my Ubuntu box does not have an Internet connection, so I can't simply do an apt-get to pull down all the packages that a higher-level package is dependent upon.
But right beside it, I have a Windows box that DOES have an Internet connection, and so far, I've been using the manual process of pulling down packages from packages.ubuntu.com, and copying it/them to a thumb drive for transport to the Ubuntu box.
But that puts me in "dependency hell" ](*,) when trying to install it, only to discover that package A needs package B, which needs package C, which needs .... ad nauseum.
Yes, the page for each package lists what other packages it is dependent upon, but that requires a lot of either: a) looking back and forth to see if those are already installed or not, or b) downloading many packages needlessly.

So is there a web site (or Windows utility) that allows simply specifying the top-level package you need, and it recursively generates a single list (or even better, a collection, suitable for zip/tar'ing) of all the needed packages?

aTdHvAaNnKcSe (thanks in advance),
Mike

[mikesorrelle]

I guess the answer is no, since there were no replies? :confused:

Did I post this in the wrong forum?
Would "Installation & Upgrade" be better?

[aysiu]

I think the best thing to do is get this:
https://ubuntuplus.bountysource.com/

Or... use a Ubuntu live CD on your computer with a faster connection. Let's say you wanted to install alien, kword, and epiphany.

Boot up the live CD on the Windows computer. Then go to the terminal and type in sudo apt-get clean
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude install kword epiphany-browser alien Then go to /var/cache/apt/archives and copy all the .deb files to a USB key or iPod or some external drive.

Then copy those .deb files to the other computer's desktop and then cd ~/Desktop
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

[mikesorrelle]

Cool! I hadn't thought of using the Live CD like that.
And the add-on CD is a great idea I wasn't aware of.
Thanks!!

[SoftGround]

You may need to watch out for proxy problems (set http_proxy to include any username and password).

Synaptic
You can also use synaptic on the live CD. This will work out the dependencies for you.

Synaptic has an option to create a download script (it uses wget). You can then download the debs onto a memory key.
If a wget download fails it will retry but rename the filename, so check for *.deb.1 etc or you may be using broken files.

You cannot create the script on your local machine as you cannot do a successful apt-get update without a connection.

Installing
To install them on your Ubuntu machine you can either just add them one by one or you can make a local repository by putting them all in a sutable folder and running scanpackages to create an index to them. Do not create sub-folders as it is not sophisticated enough for that.

dpkg-scanpackages ./ /dev/null | gzip > Packages.gz
You then need to put the local folder in your
etc/apt/sources.list e.g. (but use your location)

deb file:/hda3/packages/dapper/ ./
Then do sudo apt-get update and start synaptic. It will load the files from the local repository instead of from the internet when you try to install them.