Re: Net install question
On Wed, Mar 23, 2005 at 11:03:25PM +0000, Wulfy wrote:
> Paul E Condon wrote:
>
> >There are two packages that maintain a local cache of debian packages with
> >very little manual maintenance: apt-proxy and apt-cacher. Apt-proxy is
> >available only in woody and apt-cacher is available only in sarge/sid.
> >I am currently using apt-cacher in sarge and it is working very nicely.
> >But I have a rather more mature/expensive system than you. I have three
> >Linux boxes and apt-cacher is running on one of them. It allows me to
> >install the same packages on all machines with only one download.
> >
> >It does cache the packages that are installed on the same machine that
> >it is running on, but it does not allow you to redo the netinstall from
> >cached packages. This is because netinstall will (I think) overwrite
> >the installed apt-cacher software during the initial phases of net install.
> >
> >You may be able to install apt-cacher as one of the first packages that
> >you install, prior to pulling in X-windows, etc. Then, apt-cacher would
> >make cached copies of almost everything optional in your install. I
> >recommend that you use apt-cacher and install it as early as you can, so
> >that it will cache copies of as much as possible.
> >
> >On the other hand, Sarge is not yet stable, so you may be downloading
> >updated copies of a lot of stuff anyway, because you want the latest
> >versions.
> >
> >Other considerations: apt-cacher needs apache server to serve the local
> >repository that it generates. This may be more than your hardware can
> >handle.
> >
> Thanks for the quick reply, Paul.
>
> The version of Debian that the Knoppix disk was based on is Sarge. Most
> of the debs I downloaded were from "testing" (I think I saw a few from
> "stable" and a couple from "unstable" but at least 95% of them were
> "testing").
>
> The tinkering I was doing was to try to remove those servers that I
> didn't think I needed, including Apache, 'cos this box is just a single
> box with a modem as the only connection outside it. It runs slow and
> sometimes X-Windows won't load. This prompted me to think that starting
> from scratch and adding what I wanted bit by bit would be the way to
> go. If at each stage, I have a working OS, when something breaks, I'll
> know what I did to do it!
>
> Again, thanks for the help.
>
Your approach is fundementally sound, but consider: unstable really is
unstable. That is to say, even people who have a lot of experience with
Debian expect surprises when dealing with unstable. If you are new to
Debian, question why you need packages from unstable. The way Debian
works, any package in unstable will propagate automatically to testing
if wierd things are not reported by the people who like to run unstable.
While you are learning, maybe you should let other people debug the
most recent stuff.
If your hardware is not strong enough to support apache while also doing
other things that you want, consider finding abandoned older boxes to
add to your system. Multiple old boxes can be configured to do very
fancy things when set up to work together. Advantages of using many
old slow computers is 1. less cost, 2. when one crashes because of a
learning experiment, your whole computing world does not collapse.
Disadvantage is that it is tricky to do, and maybe you have other
things in your life.
To connect a few computer boxes into a personal LAN, you need a 'hub'
and ethernet cards in each of the computers. You can work with 10MHz
just fine, and can find the hardware in junk stores at very reasonable
prices. (If the prices aren't reasonable where you are, tell the
merchant. When enough people do so, he will lower his prices. The
kind of hardware you need is basically junk in the commercial world
of business computing. )
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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