Download Packages question

[mping]

does ubuntu package manager support resuming downloads? you see, i cannot download some ~400mb because my ISP charges extra traffic, only have 1GB international per month :-( but i have this happy hours where the traffic doesn't count. Instead of downloading package by package, i want to "queue" them and download them only when i say so, so resuming files must be supported.

Is this possible?
tks

[mendicant]

I know it won't redownload individual packages it already has--well, I typically use aptitude, but I imagine it must be the same for all the various package management tools. For individual files, I'm not so certain, although I suspect so, because of the existence of:

/var/cache/apt/archives/partial

[az]

"does ubuntu package manager support resuming downloads"

Yes, of course.

[mping]

so, resuming packets is automatic, ie, i do not have that much control over things. I want to upgrade my ubuntu, but im thinkin of downloading all the stuph late nite, and downloading only the packages, then I suppose when i try to upgrade, i already have packages on disk and ubunut will be a nice guy and install them on.the.fly :)

[mendicant]

Right. So you would do something like:

% aptitude update
% aptitude --download-only dist-upgrade
% ## alternatively--this won't install anything not currently installed (like new dependencies)
% ## aptitude --download-only upgrade

In the morning, you would then just do a normal dist-upgrade or upgrade, without the --download-only flag. You can also insert various monitoring tools to make sure it only happens during certain hours--save the PID, add batch job to check time and kill the download if it hasn't finished already. In this case, however, you would have to check to see if everything had downloaded. You can do so using:

% aptitude --simulate --download-only dist-upgrade

which can be done as any user, and check the line saying:
Need to get XkB/YkB of archives.
If X != 0, the download hasn't finished.

[magnus07]

I have a working skype package with dapper drake.
Have installed another DD but skype is no longer available.

Questions are:
1) are anywhere available old versions of packages?
2) where are on my HDD the downloaded packages? are them all .deb packages? what would be the skype name then?
3) other ways to use skype with DD?

Thanks Magnus

[Seisen]

I have a working skype package with dapper drake.
Have installed another DD but skype is no longer available.

Questions are:
1) are anywhere available old versions of packages?
2) where are on my HDD the downloaded packages? are them all .deb packages? what would be the skype name then?
3) other ways to use skype with DD?

Thanks Magnus

You can go to packages.ubuntu.com (http://packages.ubuntu.com) and search under dapper drake for skype.

[magnus07]

Thanks you pointed me to a great resource but I'm not lucky.
Since skype has copyrights is not there...

Any other way?
Magnus