Re: Installing large packages from DOS formatted diskette
>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am a newbie to Debian. Recently I installed Debian 1.3 on my PC from
> > diskettes. It is working fine. However I downloaded some Debain packages
> > which are larger than 1.44M (diskette size). How can I install these
> > packages? I have DOS/Windows tools like pkzip, arj, gzip but I am not
> > sure how to decompress it to a Linux partition on my hard disk.
> > My guess is that I need a DOS partition but I couldn't create one
> > using the Rescue Disk. BTW, which type of DOS partition do I create?
> > FAT12, FAT16, etc..
> >
> You don't need to make a DOS partition (who needs it anyway). Here's
> two ways I handle this.
> 1. The file is downloaded to you're debian machine or another *nix machine.
> I use 'split' and 'cat'. Split takes a number as an argument that
> determines the size of the split-up files. I've found between 4000
> and 5000 gives a bit over 1M size files. You can then save these on
> multiple disks, copy them to your Debian system and then cat them back
> together.
If you use `split -b 1423k package.deb package.' (include that final
period) it will make files that fit exactly on one FAT formatted high
density floppy, and it will name the output files package.aa package.ab
etc.
[ snip ]
> 2. The file is downloaded to a DOS based machine.
> PKZIP them across multiple disks. Each disk has the same name
> file, so cp them into a directory on your system with different
> names (make sure to keep things in order - name them part1, part2,
> etc). Now cat these together into a package.zip. There is an
> unzip for *nix systems (sorry, don't remember where I got mine)
> that can unzip PKZIP files. Unzip package.zip and you should have
> you're package.deb.
If all you are doing is installing a single package, it is more
convenient to use dpkg instead of dselect:
dpkg --install package.deb
You don't need a package file for that. The disadvantage of dpkg is
that it will not automatically select other packages that maybe need to
be installed first. It will however tell you what other packages are
needed. You should then install these packages first (with dpkg or
dselect) and then install the desired package again. There is no
problem if you install a package twice.
Eric Meijer
--
E.L. Meijer (tgakem@chem.tue.nl) | tel. office +31 40 2472189
Eindhoven Univ. of Technology | tel. lab. +31 40 2475032
Lab. for Catalysis and Inorg. Chem. (TAK) | tel. fax +31 40 2455054
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