hello, this probably has been asked before, but I didn't find anything
I have a lot of packages in /var/cache/apt/archives and I would like to put them in a cd so I don't have to download them again if I have to reinstall
so, my question is do I just put then on the cd or do I need something else in order to use it as a source for apt-get?
can I put them in the same cd with the sarge installer so I can install my whole system with just one cd?


thanx

You can just stick them on a CD, but you have to create a repository, Heres Debian Repository HOWTO.

thaks a lot!!
that's what I was looking for

so, if I want to put them in the same cd as the sarge installer I have to create a source folder and put it in the cd, then edit my sources.list to point to that specific folder?
am I right?

BTW, is there any apt-get command that will install everything inside a folder?

I was thinking about what you want, and theirs a simpler solution. To simply install debs you have it would be quite simple to use the dpkg command direct.

dpkg -i /mnt/cdrom/*.deb

Would install all the debs in the /mnt/cdrom/ directory. The advantage of a repository is you can be selective with apt-get, but if you just want them all then dpkg is all you need.

The only problem I can think of is dependancies which means forcing the install if they depend only on other packages your installing, but if they rely on something you've not installed you'll have problems.

To allow apt to use the cd I use the following method;
1. Create a new directory - /debs
2. copy the archive files to debs
3. create the Packages.gz that tells apt what packages are on the cd by doing from / (i.e. cd /);
dpkg-scanpackages debs /dev/null | gzip > debs/Packages.gz
4. burn /debs to a cdrom

apt will then recognise the cd and you can use the "apt-cdrom add" option