Re: [Debian-User] re: Network Install

On Sun, Feb 11, 2007 at 02:55:44PM -0700, Admin wrote:
I download a 128MB network installer iso so that I could use it to
download binariy and source files one at a time from over the internet.
Being new to Debian I tried to understand this process and came to
understand that all binary files are considered to be a "package" sort
of wrapped with dependency information. Apparently, when the package is
unwrapped these dependencies are determined to exist on the present
system or are required to be added.

In other words, I need a Debian system up and running (which I don't
have at the present time) and even then the packaged binaries and
sources will be unpacked and placed into the system. What I was after
was a kind of mirror located where ever I wanted on my LAN and I could
install all or some of them.. I take it that the network installer puts
together a basic system and then proceeds to install other packages as
directed by some kind of menu. This is fine, if that is how it happens,
but I want my own updateable archive from which this "network
installer" can feed .

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Could I simply do an FTP of some
Debian mirror? What I don't like about this FTP idea or the installer
as far as that goes is that many of the applications I want are not
available except from their development sites. Examples are TCL,
Python, Lisp, and many others; It lookis like I would have to (separate
from the installer and separate from the FTP ) gather these binaries and
sources one at a time site by site. Or have I got something very wrong???

Also, what complicates my effort is that I have a very low band witdth
to the Internet having to use a dial up connection from a rural area up
here in Alberta Canada.. For example, it took me a week to download the
"network installer".


Thanks Ted.

Hi Ted,

I'm also on a slow dialup link but I've been using Debian for years.
When you use the full netinst.iso (as opposed to the business card iso),
you have all the stuff to make a base system. A 'standard' system takes
a lot more stuff. Whenevery I have tried to do a fresh install and
select 'standard' system, it always konks out when the ppp link dies,
sometime while I was asleep.

So what I do is _not_ select standard system so that I end up with a
minimal _base_ system that is self-contained, e.g. it boots up itself
without needing the installer. Then I edit my sources.list file, then I
make sure I have aptitude, then I use aptitude to get the stuff I need
in little chunks.

This is the moral of the story, take it one chunk at a time so that any
downloading is only a few hours. I start with: lynx, mc, pino, man.
Then all the documentation (e.g. HOWTOs). Then mutt and exim4. Then
vim. Only when everything else is working do I start on X.

As for what to do if you have more than one box, once you have the base
system on the box where you wan't a partial mirror, look at apt-proxy.
It builds a mirror as you use it. Or you can use apt-move.

As for setting up such an archive first before you've installed the
first debian box, you'd have to look at http proxy apps on the OS on
some other box on your lan.

I never download the source since I've never needed to poke at it.
Anything I've ever needed has either been a debian package already or
something I write myself in python (which is a debian package).

Once a release goes stable, I download and burn CD1 just so I have it.
It takes me about 84 hrs.

Doug.


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