From 5d2741917669df2144f8fe59532152bfec373483 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: watts <benjamin.watts@psi.ch>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2024 06:21:52 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Create SneakerNetUpdates

---
 .gitlab/redirects.yml |  1 +
 SneakerNetUpdates.md  | 39 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 40 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 .gitlab/redirects.yml
 create mode 100644 SneakerNetUpdates.md

diff --git a/.gitlab/redirects.yml b/.gitlab/redirects.yml
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+--- {}
diff --git a/SneakerNetUpdates.md b/SneakerNetUpdates.md
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+Sometimes you need to install an extra package (or a hundred). If the machine is has access to the internet, then a simple `sudo apt-get install <package_name>` is all that is needed. However, it is not so simple when the machine doesn't have internet access. Here is a method for transferring the required package files with a USB drive.
+
+get initial package list:
+`$apt-get --print-uris --yes install <my_package_names> | grep ^\' | cut -d\' -f2 >downloads.list`
+
+Note that it will not append, so do it all in one go.
+
+Take downloads.list to an internet-accessible computer and run:
+`$curl --remote-name-all $(cat downloads.list)`
+
+This will fill the current directory with downloaded .deb files. 
+Beware that when a file is not found, it will silently download an "error 404" html page into the *.deb file. You can recognise them by being smaller than 280 bytes. Try downloading them from a different repository.
+
+Move the *.deb to the target PC and copy to:
+`/var/cache/apt/archives/`
+
+Run on target:
+`$sudo apt-get --no-download --fix-missing install <my_package_names>`
+
+if there are still missing dependencies, then make a list and run them through the above steps to download the extra packages. Continue recursively until it decides to actually do the install.
+
+If there are errors, some packages might get stuck with complaints about missing dependencies.
+Run this to fix what is fixable and to see a list of remaining problems:
+`$sudo apt-get --no-download --fix-missing --fix-broken install`
+
+Run this to make a list of further packages to download:
+`$apt-get --print-uris --yes --fix-missing --fix-broken install | grep ^\' | cut -d\' -f2 >downloads.list`
+
+Problems packages are listed together with the missing deps. Run the following command to try to fix the issue by force-installing the set all at once:
+`$sudo dpkg -i <package_name> <dep1> <dep2> <dep3>`
+
+If the above command produces further errors (e.g. a dep having further deps), then just add the further sub-deps to the same command (note that order is not important):
+`$sudo dpkg -i <package_name> <dep1> <dep1-1> <dep1-2> <dep2> <dep3> <dep3-1>`
+
+If you can't find the exact .deb file that was asked for, then you can substitute another .deb file for the same package, version and architecture.
+e.g. python3-numpy_1.24.2-1_amd64.deb > python3-numpy_1.24.2-1+deb12u1_amd64.deb
+Here, the addition of +deb12u1 is indicating that the package is for Debian Linux version 12, update 1.
+
+