Re: Bug#223372: apt-zip: dynamic computation of what files we need
OK, the idea is we depart our faraway Antarctic (or mere hilltop, or
Space Station) debian machine with as little information possible that
describes its state, in terms of which of sid/sarge/woody, and which
versions of packages we have installed:
COLUMNS=222 dpkg -l|awk 'NR==1,/===/{next};{print $1,$2,$3}
Also we would have a list of packages we want to add, but didn't have
the bandwidth do download.
When we arrive at the well connected site, oh weeks later, we furnish
the above information and create a, oh, CDROM or two, of the same
files we would get if we had done a 'apt-get dist-upgrade' back in
Antarctica, however with current Packages files instead.
This gives us weeks fresher packages than if we had computed what we
needed before we left the faraway site.
We return to the faraway site and install the packages.
When we were at the well connected site, we told apt: given these
packages installed, and these available, etc. etc., please compute
what I need for a dist-upgrade etc.
Apt programs like to have a "status" file. This we can construct from
the minimal
COLUMNS=222 dpkg -l|awk 'NR==1,/===/{next};{print $1,$2,$3}
that we left home with.
But what happens when we arrive at the well connected site only to
find that they all use some other leading brand operating system... no
apt anywhere to compute what we need.
No problem, we just slide our pitiful floppy with the dpkg -l,
sid/sarge/woody choice, and additional wanted packages list, into
their computer and tell the apt-computations website to compute what
we need for download, (and ask about problem resolution too.)
Of course one might ask, why not take the whole computer or the hard
disk to the well connected site... well, as we take a kayak thru a bad
neighborhood to get there we could likely loose all along the way,
plus mom needs to use it while we are gone.
>>>>> "G" == Giacomo A Catenazzi <cate@debian.org> writes:
G> Dan Jacobson wrote:
>> Package: apt-zip
>> Version: 0.13.2
>> Severity: wishlist
>> Let's say I leave home with fetch-script-wget-jidanni.org for a two
>> week trip to a place with fast connections, I'll return home with
>> files no newer than two weeks.
>> If however, I left home with an extract of the dpkg-status file, and
>> some other vital snippets, I could be able to get the freshest
>> versions available for my system... but how... probably thru various
>> apt config stuff...
G> Hello.
G> I used a script that download the Packages file and from this it
G> extracts the newer version of package to download. So I could
G> update unstable with few problems. It is no perfect, but it can
G> help. Maybe I can implement an other script to put the complete
G> package list on zip and than remotely to see what new packages are
G> needed. This methos would have nearly no more dependence
G> problem. (but in case of packages split, packages that depends on
G> new created packages. To solve this it would to complicates, but if
G> we use the next methods)
G> apt-get documentation give some hint about use a remote debian machine to
G> calculate the new list of packages of download.
G> These methods are more complex as the actual methods, and the
G> remote machine (fast connected machine) maybe doesn't have the
G> needed tools (shell scripts are not so portable in the various unix
G> because of "creative" implementation of some features). I'm
G> working on doing some scripts so that user can use powerfull script
G> on GNU/Linux machines and simple scripts on some old unix machines
G> (and maybe also a .bat for dos/windoze).
G> ciao
G> giacomo
G> PS: sorry about the big delay of fixing apt-zip bugs :-( . Really I
G> should/want to correct shortly the apt-zip, and in a second step
G> upload the newfeatured apt-zip
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