Offline Synaptic Installation/Repository Updates

[cortman]

Do you mean to delete just the ones that I added?

Yes, in Synaptic.

If so, should I also delete the actual folders I made, and remake them?

If you have actually checked that they're called "binary-amd64" and they are, no need to delete them.

Re-add the local repositories in Synaptic.

[zgqcliff]

Does this method work for 12.04LTS ?

[cortman]

Does this method work for 12.04LTS ?

It should, yes. Although if you can install Synaptic normally and update online, even just once, it's definitely worth it.

[rajhanschinmay]

Kindly select ur Ubuntu version:
http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/pm/synaptic

Then download the .deb package file.
To install kindly use dpkg command as:
dpkg -i package_name.deb

Thank you.

[puzzledinportorchard]

I want to thank you - and even praise you:All Hail the Bard! - for your clear instructions. I have an offline Pentium 4 running Xubuntu 12.04.1 LTS and an online running a LiveCD of 10.04, and using your method I have successfully updated the repository list (or whatever the hell it's called). This is the clearest and most precise set of instructions on anything that I've ever encountered in Linux. Bless you.

Some comments about my experience: First, I did have the problem as above about having the 'copy' function replace the dash in front of 'p' with an extra space and some different sort of dash, so I ended up with a folder called '-p'. An easy thing to fix.

The other two things came as pleasant surprises; Synaptic 0.75.9 must have seen me coming, because instead of making four entries and their Source Code duplicates, and even though as instructed I added them one at a time, Synaptic made two entries: one with 'main universe multiverse restricted' all on one line, and the same with 'Source Code' at the end (which, as advised, I removed.) And when I made a script I found I didn't have to replace /home/myname with the http for the mirror sight; it made the normal link. Clearly, the people who updated Synaptic have dealt with well-educated idiots like me before!

Bless you. Thank you.

However, my attempt to download VLC through this USB-key method didn't work; I got all the '404' errors I got before. But I think it's off this topic so I'll take it to the newbie forum and see what results I get. Thank you again and a bazillion times.

[puzzledinportorchard]

Now I'm not so sure it worked. Just redid the whole process. The directory is just as it should be. The packages.gz are each in the right directory, everything spelled just right. They're still unpacked after the refresh, though; should they be? And the error messages, containing as expected all the calls to http's also have this, four times:

Failed to fetch file:/home/[myname]/dists/precise/multiverse[and main, etc.]/binary-i386/Packages

But why is it trying to fetch those? I have checked most carefully: the packages are each there, but in .../binary-amd64, as they should be. Are the packages supposed to remain unpacked after Synaptic reloads?

I know that something has changed - a package, ubuntu-restricted-extras, is now listed in Synaptic and it wasn't before; but out of the 20 calls to fetch in the script generated to get this file, only six were successful. I have checked the directory very carefully; /home/[me]/dists/precise/main[etc]/binary-amd64/ - each with its own unpacked .gz - and I was very careful to get the right ones, the AMD64s; but Synaptic generates scripts that don't work.

[puzzledinportorchard]

It has been confirmed elsewhere that the scripts Synaptic is generating for me are making calls to files that have been replaced by newer ones with different names. So I've done something wrong and am not, in fact, updating Synaptic.

[puzzledinportorchard]

Open Synaptic and go to Settings>Repositories> and make SURE the file path says amd_64. This just sounds like somehow you've given the i386 path to Synaptic.

I'm embarrassed to say I missed this part of the discussion my first two times through the thread. It's certainly pertinent to my current problem. But I don't understand the answer. I've gone over and over the tutorial, both here and on my offline, and repeated the steps again and again. When I go to Settings>Repositories and select that one line that Synaptic put my home file on, I don't see anywhere where any path at all is pointed to. As far as I can find I haven't anywhere told Synaptic anything about where to find the files except /home/[me]/ , the word 'precise' and the words 'main, universe, multiverse, restricted'. Nothing about 'dists'. Nothing about 'amd-64' OR 'i386'.

I tabbed through all the menus in Settings>Repositories. Everything is exactly as the tutorial says it should be except, as above, that Synaptic took my four seperately-added repos and made them one line. Where path? What path?

When I edit the repository entry, I get:
Type Binary
URI file:/home/[myname]
Distribution precise
Components universe main multiverse restricted.

Another question: if I get this working, and I'm sure I will, I should repeat it whenever I need something new, just before generating the script. But do I just add the new .gz files to the amd-64 folders or replace the old with the new and reload?

[puzzledinportorchard]

Ooops. The scripts Synaptic made did make calls to 'file:/' etc. in place of the links it should have. Just as you'd warned. I simply hadn't scrolled down the .sh file far enough to see them. I followed all the links in the script, and indeed the files it didn't fetch had all been updated in the last month. I'm wondering if I can deduce anything from which calls had been changed to 'file' - that might tell me which package lists had been updated and which not.

For those newbies like me who encounter this, and use gedit to change the script - I discovered that after you save, you have to right-click on the edited file, go to 'Properties>Permissions' and check the box to make it executable again. Yelling at the computer doesn't work.

[puzzledinportorchard]

I seem to be talking to myself, here. . .

I did (finally!) notice that in the out-of-date scripts Synaptic is creating, those lines where it reads 'file' instead of 'http' were all calls to the multiverse repository, and they all, after correcting, worked: however, I don't think that means that only the /home/[me] ... /multiverse/ etc package was read. On that Settings>Repositories first tab, everything is checked except the 'multiverse' entry. So I think that's telling Synaptic to look on line for everything except 'multiverse' calls. I think. Maybe.

I've inspected every part of Synaptic and don't find anywhere where anything is pointing to amd64 or i386. I've torn down and rebuilt the file system many times, both through copying the mkdir command you give (and erasing and retyping all the dashes and the spaces in front of them before entering, to insure against the emdash problem), and used the bash to type it all in from scratch, and used the graphic system to create them; I've done the whole thing over six times now, from scratch. Always the same result; Synaptic will not refresh its package list, giving me those same four 'can't find ...i386' errors on reloading, and writing out-of-date scripts.

The file system looks exactly like this:
/home/[me]/dists/precise/main[etc]/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
No extraneous spaces. No typos. I could do it now in my sleep. In fact, I am.

So I tried figuring how to do it by apt. Not going to happen.

You mention the possibility that this is the 32-bit, not the 64-bit, version of Synaptic. That could be: it was put on the computer a month ago by experts, but since Xubuntu doesn't include Synaptic anymore by default, it was apparently added separately. Synaptic says it is version 0.75.9. Synaptic's web page seems last to have been updated in 2004.

When I go to Settings>Repositories>Other Software, the entries may be telling a story. The first two are CD's of Ubuntu (not Xubuntu - I still don't get the difference) 10.04 LTS. The third is to an Ubuntu repository about Synaptic. So I guess that means they downloaded Synaptic from the 10.04 disk and then updated it. It does write, without any prompting I can find, scripts that call for amd64 packages, but I guess that would be the update. How do I tell if I got the wrong Synaptic version?

And what do I do if I did? Surely I can't use Synaptic to remove and replace Synaptic, I can't use the Ubuntu Software Center offline, and if I knew how to use apt to replace Synaptic I wouldn't need Synaptic.

I await enlightenment.