A few months ago, when I didn't have an internet connection yet on my computer, I had a lot of trouble trying to install software on ubuntu. Now I am trying to make a little howto on doing this. The following is what I thought of so far, please give your comments on how it could be done better:
First of all, you need the correct package index files (the files that are updated when you type apt-get update). If you have a dial-up internet connection this should be easy, just use apt-get update. If you don't have an internetconnection at all, you will probably have to find someone who has the same ubuntu version installed as you. The files are stored in /var/lib/apt/lists. You need all the files starting with archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_hoary (assuming you are running hoary/5.04). Put them in your own /var/lib/apt/lists directory.
Then the typing the following line in a terminal window will give you the files you need to download:
Replace ***packagename*** with the name of the package you want to install.Code:apt-get -qq --print-uris install ***packagename*** | cut -d\' -f2
You can add >filelist to the end of the line to make a file containing all the urls, which you can easily download on any pc with linux using wget -i filelist.
Download all the files and put them in one directory. Then go to the directory and type: 'dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null | gzip > Packages.gz'
Burn all the files in the directory on a cd.
On your own pc type 'apt-cdrom add'.
Then you are all set and can use apt-get install ***packagename*** to install the package.
Alternatively you can install all the individual package files with dpkg -i filename.deb
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