<div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 3:31 AM, Chris Oliver <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:excid3@gmail.com">excid3@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 2:12 AM, Manoj Srivastava <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:srivasta@acm.org" target="_blank">srivasta@acm.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div>On Sat, Mar 21 2009, Chris Oliver wrote:<br>
<br>
> I am a sophmore computer science major in need of a mentor for a<br>
> project I would like to work on with Debian. I have started a project<br>
> called Keryx in an attempt to develop a tool capable of browsing all<br>
> available packages much like Synaptic that is cross-platform allowing<br>
> users to download packages, dependencies and updates from any computer<br>
> to a flash drive. This can help users who perform updates on machines<br>
> without internet connections, dialup users, and provides an<br>
> alternative to APTonCD by giving users the ability to use common flash<br>
> drives easily without having to reburn CDs. It is still a _very_ alpha<br>
<br>
</div> What criteria are you thinking of using to determine which<br>
packages would be required on the non-networked machine? That would be<br>
the crux of the problem (aptitude --download-only install; cp<br>
/var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb over (after determining how much space is<br>
available at the destination) would be straightforward then.</blockquote></div><div><br>The dpkg status file from the offline machine we can determine which packages are necessary to download. For installation I was looking into dpkg-scanpackages and creating a local repository for the project with which they could be installed via aptitude like normal.<br>
</div><div><div></div><div class="h5"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div><br>
> application and needs a lot of work. I plan on rewriting it from<br>
> scratch, creating an API that would be able to be used with multiple<br>
> interfaces, command-line and GUI. I plan on supporting package<br>
> installation as well, which can be done several different ways, but I<br>
> am not for sure which would be the best route yet. You can check it<br>
> out here: <a href="http://keryxproject.org" target="_blank">http://keryxproject.org</a><br>
<br>
</div> You might be interested in checking out apt-zip.<br>
,----[ apt-zip ]<br>
| Description: Update a non-networked computer using apt and removable media<br>
| These scripts simplify the process of using dselect and apt on a<br>
| non-networked Debian box, using removable media like ZIP floppies and<br>
| USB keys.<br>
| One generates a `fetch' script (supporting backends such as wget and<br>
| lftp, in a modular, extensible way) to be run on a host with better<br>
| connectivity, check space constraints of your removable media, and<br>
| then install the package on your Debian box.<br>
| Homepage: <a href="http://alioth.debian.org/projects/apt-zip" target="_blank">http://alioth.debian.org/projects/apt-zip</a><br>
`----<br>
<br>
This works somewhat differently than Keryx; in that apt-zip<br>
runs on the non-networked computer (and thus has an idea of what<br>
versions of things it has) generates a script to be run on a better<br>
networked computer, and does size checks of the usb media. (it is<br>
unclear to me how the non-networked computer runs the equivalent of an<br>
aptitude update).<br>
<br>
<br>
It does not seem to have a graphical interface.<br>
</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>
manoj</blockquote><div> </div></div></div><div>This does do the job, however the barrier to entry with apt-zip is a
little too high for newcomers. The idea is to create a simple to use
GUI that non-networked users could take advantage of. If you generate a
script this will be fine, but what if you would like to download
something else when you are on highspeed and it is not included in the
script? You would need to go to <a href="http://packages.debian.org" target="_blank">http://packages.debian.org</a> and
manually compare them against your status file to determine which ones
you needed to grab. This is way too much to ask from someone new to
Debian as well as a hassle for those of us more experienced.
Essentially the project would be a cross-platform version of Synaptic
in which you create a project that is kept up-to-date without the user
having to worry about the details. You can think of it like a USB
version of APTonCD as well. With this you could get the packages you
needed and have them stored on your USB device and update the packages
easily without reburning CDs all the time as well as not needing to
boot to Linux in order to grab the packages to burn off since it will
be cross-platform (using Python and a related tool such as py2exe). Does this all make sense?<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<font color="#888888">--<div class="im"><br>
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, A hero perish or a sparrow fall.<br>
Manoj Srivastava <<a href="mailto:srivasta@acm.org" target="_blank">srivasta@acm.org</a>> <<a href="http://www.golden-gryphon.com/" target="_blank">http://www.golden-gryphon.com/</a>><br>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C<br>
</div></font></blockquote></div><font color="#888888"><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Chris "excid3" Oliver<br>
</font></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Chris "excid3" Oliver<br>