Re: Debian repository available on USB flash rather than CD/DVD sets?
On Feb 23, 2014, at 12:39 AM, Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> wrote:
> Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
>> [SNIP]
>>>>>
>>>>> I keep getting suggestions to approximately meet *SPECIFICATION* by ... ;/
>>>>
>>
>> Can you afford two USB sticks - one 32G and one 64G?
>
> Wrong question <ROFL>
> I accumulate so many that I'm looking for a feasible method of storing them so I can quickly, easily and reliably retrieve the desired stick.
>
> Any proposed "solution" involving the internet is *UNACCEPTABLE* !!!!!
> would YOU like to download ~40 GB via 56k modem (jigdo or not)? <*SNICKER*>
>
>
> THEREFORE any acceptable solution must either:
> identify in country vendor supplying preloaded USB sticks <unlikely>
> OR
> begin with complete set of physical install DVDs <which I have on my desk ;>
Richard,
You can tell jigdo-lite to use your DVDs (or, actually, the loop-mounted iso images for the DVDs) as starting points for the files it needs. Since you have all 10 DVDs (and presumably have already made .iso files on disk out of them) you should never need to actually access anything over the internet except for the BD .jigdo and .template files. For the current Wheezy (7.4.0) blu-ray install disks, that amounts to about 70 MB, or about 3 hours at 56Kbps. If even that's too much for you, provide me with a mailing address and I'll mail you a CD with those files on it.
Take a look at this website for an explanation of using jigdo-lite with a local DVD image as starting point.
http://www.electrictoolbox.com/how-to-use-jigdo-lite/
You put the resulting two BD .iso files onto a 64GB FAT formatted USB stick.
To do an install, first you boot from the first DVD. Then switch to the <ALT-F2> console, plug in the USB stick and loop mount the BD images it contains. Then, when prompted, tell the installer to use those as the place to get it's .deb files from.
Of course, if using jigdo (even without access to the Internet) is anathema to you, you can put all 10 DVD images on your USB stick and loop mount them in the installer instead of the two BD images. To do that, you'll have to tweak the kernel command line at grub time to increase the number of loop mount-points from the default eight.
I hope this helps put this topic finally to rest...
Rick
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