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aptoncd - Take your own repository with you on CD

Submitted by ggarron on Fri, 12/28/2007 - 02:40.

With AptOnCd you can backup and restore your .deb packages and store them in a CD or DVD or just in an ISO image in your USB Drive.

aptoncd, will help you still be able to use apt, aptitude or synaptic even, with no, or poor Internet conection.

All you need is to install one system with all the desired software, using apt-get to install all the software, once installed all the .deb files will be on your /var/cache/apt/archives/ directory, so you can backup all them up, in a CD or DVD and take it with you for your next installation of your Debian or Ubuntu Linux Operating System.

Install aptoncd

sudo apt-get install aptoncd

once installed you will find it in your menu (If you are using Gnome)

System->Administration->Aptoncd

Back up

Click on create CD/DVD

It will explore the /var/cache/apt/archives/ for your .deb files

and present you with the possible files to add on your CD/DVD

Select where to save the image, and the name of it.

Once finished, you can burn the image, or use it as an ISO image.

Restore

Select if you want to restore a CD/DVD, an ISO image or add the CD/DVD as a repository for apt-get, aptitude or Synaptic.

I chose to use the ISO image.

and it restore the .deb files to /var/cache/apt/archives/ directory, it will as you for the administrative password.

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All very nice, but how many

Submitted by Jeff Dickey (not verified) on Sat, 12/29/2007 - 11:04.

All very nice, but how many of us keep all our cached packages once they're installed? I have a task in /etc/init.d/ that updates my software everytime I start the system (via aptitude clean; aptitude update; aptitude dist-upgrade -y); other folks I know have similar automation. The killer, of course, is 'aptitude clean' - but a necessary 'evil'. Disk space is cheaper than ever before, but not free - and those of us running laptop systems have even tighter constraints.

But it would be a Good Thing to have a nifty tool in the spirit of aptoncd that will let you automate the process of getting your system back to where it was, or cloning an existing system. What I'd like to see would basically work like:

Build a list of packages installed on the system;
Remove from the list any packages unchanged from the original install medium;
Pull down copies of those packages and cache them (not in the /var/cache/apt tree);
Build a DVD or CD, or set thereof, to hold the packages (an external hard-drive option would be lovely);
Finally, also back up your /etc/apt/ directory to the same media.

This way, reinstalling/cloning your current system is easy:

Do a default/simple/quick install of your distro onto the PC;
Put the (first) disk with your packages into the drive;
Run a shell script that whacks over your saved /etc/apt onto the system and then installs all the debs via dpkg or similar)

This way, I could easily give my new-to-Linux friends who've commented on my specific install a no-brainer way to recreate it; install and then update from the media. No network immediately needed, which would solve problems with things like initially quirky wireless chips (e.g., Broadcom).

Does anybody know of such a thing? My pain level's getting high enough often enough that if I don't find something that fits the bill, I'm likely to end up writing it in a month or two.