Re: [Synaptic-devel] Newbie qstn: repository on a local hard disk?

[Leendert Meyer]

On Friday 23 July 2004 04:28, Ari Torhamo wrote:
> Hello!
>
> I have been using Linux (Mandrake and Fedora) for a few months now,
> after using Windows for several years. I don't know how to programm and
> I wouldn't call myself a power user, so I'm glad to find that I can do
> so much with Linux using only GUI-tools.
>
> I often use Synaptic to install and upgrade software (also default Yum
> for system upgrades). Using Synaptic for these tasks feels rather simple
> and intuitive. I have had some problems too, many of which relate to
> documentation. There are some things that I know I should be able to do
> with Synaptic, but I don't know how.
>
> One of these things is installing software which resides on my own hard
> disk. It's mentioned in the Synaptic manual that repositories can be
> located on a local hard disk. I tried hard to make Synaptic to see a
> directory on my hard disk as a repository, but I failed. What I tried to
> do, was to add a path to the directory in question in a field named
> "URI" in the "Repositories" window. When I clicked "OK", nothing new
> ever appeared in the repository list. I tried to write the path in
> several different ways, but nothing worked. I even tried to search the
> web for several hours for the answer and did find a couple of people
> asking the same question, but they were just guided to do the thing
> using command line tools. I realize that it may just be some simple
> trivial thing, which I don't see, but anyway I'm stuck. (In the future
> I'll propably have the same problem with optical disks.)
>
> It would be great if someone on this list could help me with this. I
> also think it might be a great idea to add this information to the
> Synaptic manual. It may sometimes be suprisingly difficult and time
> consuming for a newbie to search for this kind of information in the
> web. It's often difficult even to understand the answers.
>
> Thank's for the developers for Synaptic - I really like to use it. If
> anyone is interested, I might send more questions, comments or
> suggestions from a newbie perspective in the future.

To install packages from an (rpm-based) apt repository, one has to install 
apt, apt-libs, and lua (optionally synaptic for a graphical front-end).

To create a (local) repository, one has to install (and run) apt4rpm.

See http://apt4rpm.sf.net/ for more info.

Cheers,

Leen