Hi,
I would like to know if it is possible to copy the files (*.deb) from the archives of another system to my local machine and install the packages without accessing the internet.

I have my colleague's system connected to internet on which he has installed couple of packages through synaptic. Related package files are available in /var/cache/apt/archives directory of his machine.

I tried copying all the files from his archives directory to my home_dir/binaries and added the entry "deb file:/home_dir/binaries ./" into /etc/apt/source.list (along with creating Packages file). While installing the packages I observe that though the files are locally available on my hard disk installer tries to download it from internet!!!.

How do I make the installer to use the local copy (if available) before going to other sources for the rest.

Thanks in advance,
Ravi

how about installing them by hand with dpkg -i packagename.deb?

Since I have to load multiple packages I thought it will be difficult to manage the installations. Also does the database gets synchronized with synaptic in case I want to add few more modules having dependancy with already isntalled modules?

I feel synaptic is a easy way to manage the packages and use it as much as possible.