[clug] Debian session for any Choobs?

[Daniel Pittman]

steve jenkin <sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au> writes:
> Hal Ashburner wrote on 16/6/09 2:04 PM:

[...]

> Could someone comment on/briefly describe correct use of 'apt-cdrom'?
> (mentioned here:
> <http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-basico.en.html>)

If you run 'apt-cdrom add' it will add a CD repository to your sources.list
file, after which apt will prompt for that CD when packages are available.

However...

> Something that bugs me with .deb systems is 'upgrade'/'dist-upgrade'
> default being done over the Net.

...unless you are installing systems frequently, you will usually benefit
relatively little from this, as security updates will still cause large
downloads to get things up to date.

> I don't maintain a local repo - is that the real answer?

Probably not; if you have multiple systems running similar versions of Debian
or Ubuntu you are best using an appropriate proxy cache system to avoid
repeated downloads.

apt-cacher-ng is, in my experience, the most reliable and effective tool for
the job; install that on one system, then configure all the other machines to
use that as an HTTP proxy for apt and it will ensure you only download a
package file once.

[...]

> I know its possible to update from downloaded (optical) media, but have
> never learnt how it do it :-(

sudo apt-cdrom add
# follow the prompts
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
# ...which will now use the CD for anything that is available on it.

> i.e. what are the instructions to update/upgrade/dist-upgrade a system from
> CD/DVD/... ?  Which media should be downloaded/used for Debian & Ubuntu?

Unless you are installing, generally you don't want to download a CD or DVD
image.  You want, instead, to use the network.  No, really, I actually mean
that.

Using a network cache tool is easier and more sensible except in very
specialized and uncommon circumstances.

Regards,
        Daniel