Offline Synaptic Installation/Repository Updates

[ebeth]

OK, I won't worry about the pixmap warning. I went back and checked every step and found I did have a typo in one of the folder names, I corrected that then used gksu synaptic.

It opened for just a second then disappeared.

[cortman]

Still strange. Can you start it from the launcher? (Assuming you're using unity)
There is a bug in synaptic that keeps it from opening properly- I'm on my mobile right noe so can't look it up, but Google "fix synaptic accessibility". It has something to do with the accessibility settings.
Ill get back with you later!

[ebeth]

Thanks cortman. I got it working!

I had two issues that, I think, prevented the proper install. One was the accessibility issue which I found info about here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/69474...keeps-crashing

The other was a cut and paste error. At step 3 I just copied and pasted the entire string into the terminal window ("mkdir -p...") What actually copied wasn't a dash '-", but an emdash. (I've changed some prefs in Firefox to make it easier to read. Could be the problem with copy/paste?) I ended up with a directory called "-p". When I typed "mkdir -p " then just copied and pasted the directory names I was good to go.

Thank you again for the excellent instructions - I couldn't have done this without them. And, even with the errors I learned a lot about the OS. One warning I would give to others: Don't try this late at night while sipping a fine glass of Merlot.

[cortman]

Thanks cortman. I got it working!

I had two issues that, I think, prevented the proper install. One was the accessibility issue which I found info about here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/69474...keeps-crashing

The other was a cut and paste error. At step 3 I just copied and pasted the entire string into the terminal window ("mkdir -p...") What actually copied wasn't a dash '-", but an emdash. (I've changed some prefs in Firefox to make it easier to read. Could be the problem with copy/paste?) I ended up with a directory called "-p". When I typed "mkdir -p " then just copied and pasted the directory names I was good to go.

Thank you again for the excellent instructions - I couldn't have done this without them. And, even with the errors I learned a lot about the OS. One warning I would give to others: Don't try this late at night while sipping a fine glass of Merlot.

Great- I'm glad the error was as simple as it was, and the Synaptic bug was fixable. That's the positive thing about bugs in the OS- it sure teaches you about it!
Thanks for the kind comments, and good advice. Best wishes!

[elliotn]

This method works great but I found one flop, when u generate download package script in synaptic the script contains URI'S but the uri's won't be able to download the packages as intended. WHY? that's because the uri's address point to http://file.home/pool instead of http://za.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/ thus one have to use Gedit and replace the file.home/pool with the correct one, I will post screenshots soon

[cortman]

This method works great but I found one flop, when u generate download package script in synaptic the script contains URI'S but the uri's won't be able to download the packages as intended. WHY? that's because the uri's address point to http://file.home/pool instead of http://za.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/ thus one have to use Gedit and replace the file.home/pool with the correct one, I will post screenshots soon

In other words, you're saying it didn't work because my script points to the default mirror for the US, whereas you, being in South Africa, needed it to point to the .za mirror.
Downloads from the US still should work, just slower. And as much as I'd like to, it wouldn't be feasible to include a script for every possible mirror.
Thanks for pointing it out, though, and if anyone has this problem, please post on this thread and I'll see if I can tweak it to work with your country's repositories.

[elliotn]

In other words, you're saying it didn't work because my script points to the default mirror for the US, whereas you, being in South Africa, needed it to point to the .za mirror.
Downloads from the US still should work, just slower. And as much as I'd like to, it wouldn't be feasible to include a script for every possible mirror.
Thanks for pointing it out, though, and if anyone has this problem, please post on this thread and I'll see if I can tweak it to work with your country's repositories.

no no the script works, what I meant is updating repository using the package.gz and when u Generate the Download Package script to use it to download on an online PC, the script uri's doesn't point to a active mirror but it points to file/home/ instead of za/us.achieve.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool blah blah

[elliotn]

In other words, you're saying it didn't work because my script points to the default mirror for the US, whereas you, being in South Africa, needed it to point to the .za mirror.
Downloads from the US still should work, just slower. And as much as I'd like to, it wouldn't be feasible to include a script for every possible mirror.
Thanks for pointing it out, though, and if anyone has this problem, please post on this thread and I'll see if I can tweak it to work with your country's repositories.

check the screenshot below it says it all

[cortman]

Thank you for catching this. What about changing it so that instead of adding new repositories, you simply move the list file into /var/lib/apt and replace the existing one? The only hitch would be if update wouldn't work- but it shouldn't even really need to update, since it'd just be reading from the existing files.

EDIT: How about a script that would cut out the file/home/ and replace it with the archive mirror? It'd be one extra step, but it'd be more convenient than editing it manually.
If there is some more streamlined way of doing this that I am totally missing, I should probably just close this and point people to it...

[elliotn]

Thank you for catching this. What about changing it so that instead of adding new repositories, you simply move the list file into /var/lib/apt and replace the existing one? The only hitch would be if update wouldn't work- but it shouldn't even really need to update, since it'd just be reading from the existing files.

I find the Gedit method of replacing the the uri's simpler as it doesn't need no effort