Re: how to install dpkg from scratch?

["Kevin B. McCarty" <kmccarty@Princeton.EDU>]

Bahadir Balban wrote:

> I have a filesystem where I want to add debian packages. How could I
> install dpkg from scratch so that I can use it to install packages?

Hi Bahadir,

If you intend to eventually boot with that filesystem set as root, you
may want to look at debootstrap.  "apt-cache show debootstrap" reveals:

Description: Bootstrap a basic Debian system
 debootstrap is used to create a Debian base system from scratch,
 without requiring the availability of dpkg or apt. It does this by
 downloading .deb files from a mirror site, and carefully unpacking them
 into a directory which can eventually be chrooted into.

I think it should be possible to compile debootstrap on (initially)
non-Debian systems.

There is also a script someone wrote to do a more complete transition
from non-Debian to Debian system, called "debtakeover":

	http://www.hadrons.org/~guillem/debian/debtakeover/

Having never used it, I can't guarantee whether it will work.

regards,

-- 
Kevin B. McCarty <kmccarty@princeton.edu>   Physics Department
WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~kmccarty/    Princeton University
GPG public key ID: 4F83C751                 Princeton, NJ 08544