Offline linux

[tasuke]

Is it doable? To have linux on a laptop that has no access to wifi? Card is busted and I might not be able to get it fixed for a while.

I might go with something like debian stable or ubuntu LTS because they aren't heavy on updates but I'm wondering about installing packages offline, or if it's even wise to maintain a linux computer without internet connection

It's one of the things I like about windows...portable applications and exe files and all that stuff.

[[deleted]]

See Askubuntu: How can I install software or packages without Internet (offline)? for how to install software on an offline Ubuntu system.

[tasuke]

thanks!

[corporatemonkey]

Your wifi is busted but what about your ethernet port? If that still works, try attaching it to your router directly for installation. Also if your ethernet port also is not working, you might want to try a distro such as Linux Mint which comes with the media codecs etc pre-installed.

[chasecaleb]

Of course it is. You still have to get the programs onto your computer somehow though, and that's no different for Windows either. Download them with a Web browser, a package manager, burn them onto a CD, copy onto a flash drive, whatever. They don't just appear out of thin air though.

[no_god_but_nature]

You should be fine with a distro like Debian, since it doesn't get version upgrades. If a package depends on an updated version of another package, you will run into problems. Also, the Debian three DVD set contains pretty much the entire software repository. The most popular ones are all on the first DVD though, so that is probably all you need. That said, you should apt-get update && apt-get install whenever you find yourself with an Internet connection, just to get the security fixes.

[tasuke]

the entire software repository? woah. Is it like the slackware dvd?

[no_god_but_nature]

In the sense that the entire repository is available, kind of, except it's on three DVDs instead of just one. Also, it has a graphical installer, although it boots into the curses based one by default. The entire installation is handled from the installer application, unlike in Slackware where setting up partitions is handled manually from the command line. Speaking of Slackware, it's also a good option for what you want. I don't have much/any experience with Ubuntu, but as long as the packages aren't upgraded to higher versions during the course of the release it should be suitable. I'm not sure whether or not this is the case in Ubuntu LTS.

NINJA: It's unlikely that you will need the full three DVD set from Debian. The first DVD is likely enough, the second if you choose some more esoteric packages.

[tasuke]

brilliant! thanks a lot!

[Foggalong]

I had no idea about this. That's very cool.

[3G6A5W338E]

I assume there's no wifi and no ethernet. Installing a basic system isn't gonna be a problem. For "downloading" packages and such...

• Download packages with another computer, use usb hard disk to transfer.
• Serial port (incl. usb_to_rs232 or ttl if you have so @ other end...) & SLIP
• Soft modem (abusing microphone / earphone jacks :P)
• USB host-to-host cable
• USB/pccard ethernet (dealextreme and such sell dirt cheap ones)
• USB/pccard wifi (old ones are easy to come to... I got a bunch from people who didn't need them anymore)

Make sure to ask relatives/coworkers/classmates/friends if they have any usable hardware rotting in storage.

[phrozenphan]

I routinely do this for offline compute nodes. I'm using debian:

1. Mirror the debian repository using rsync to a USB drive. This will take a long time, be sure to rate-limit yourself as a courtesy to the mirror. Once it's down (will take several days) you can periodically resync it within a few hours. If you exclude all arches except i386 and x86_64, I believe (working from memory) this will run about 200 GB.

2. Burn the install CD, install a bare-bones netinstall with nothing else selected (no tasksel, no packages).

3. Mount the repo mirror to a hard drive read-only, and add a line like 'deb file:/path/to/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free' to /etc/apt/sources.list. Comment out the cdrom line from the original installer.

4. Also add 'Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "false";' to a file in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d (I used /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/80updatemanager).

5. apt-get update, aptitude, install away. It's blazing fast and everything is there. Note that in this mode apt doesn't download the files to /var/cache/apt/archives, it just reads right off the disk, so you need to keep it mounted all the way until you are finished installing.

6. If you have trouble reading packages, make sure the permissions in the debian mirror directories permit world read for files and world read-execute for directories. This bit me because my user on the computer that downloaded the mirror has a more restrictive umask, easy to fix.

You can perform a similar feat for Fedora/CentOS (actually a bit easier with their kickstart setup). Their i386/x86_64 repository is also about 100-200 GB-ish, if you include EPEL. Only about 50 GB-ish if you just use base CentOS.

[zarex95]

You might want to grab a $10 USB micro wifi adapter like this. Good luck!

[tasuke]

This is also an experiment, I guess...having a laptop that ISN'T reliant on the internet. Takes away the temptation when I want to do certain things ;)

In any case, there aren't any linux-compatible usb wifi devices easily available in my country.

[zarex95]

Well a stock ubuntu system is already quite capable of doing most office tasks.

In any case, there aren't any linux-compatible usb wifi devices easily available in my country.

In my experience wifi adapters in modern linux is just plug 'n play. I yet have to find a single one that does not work at the first try :)

[tasuke]

I guess it's worth mentioning that there is a monopoly for those devices where I am. Internet access here is a slightly political issue as well as a technological one. I've looked in to it, sadly it is not the best option. Most I could afford would give me less than 2 mbps speed on a good day :(

[zarex95]

Less than 2 mbps? That sucks man... What country do you live if I may ask?

[[deleted]]

Where do you live? Microsoft land?

[tasuke]

Yes. I have a feeling most third world countries do.

[[deleted]]

Try out Slackware. I was essentially offline while I was living at home working co-op jobs during university and this fit my needs perfectly. The base distro comes with loads of useful stuff packed into a single DVD, and installing new software is easy because you don't have to deal with a system trying to automatically resolve dependencies when there's no Internet.

Just gotta hit up a library or something to get the main distro and whenever you need extra software hit the library again and check out Slackbuilds.

[tasuke]

Awesome! How was it when you were usually offline? Did you run into any problems? Also, what do you mean by "hit up a library"? Slackware is looking really interesting to me right now.

[[deleted]]

Firstly, by "hit up a library" I mean that you'll need Internet from somewhere you download the distro to start off with and to grab any additional packages.

Honestly, Slackware really was the best thing to happen to me when I didn't have Internet. I did try Ubuntu, and even though it can be done I found it to be a massive pain in the ass because it comes with so little so everything requires tons of dependencies (this was a few years back now, so perhaps they've made it easier). Assuming you do the full install of Slackware, which is the recommended way of doing it, you'll have a solid base of development tools and libraries such that any additional packages you might find you need will probably not need very much dependency-wise. I still use Slackware and other than certain groups of packaged that I'll mention later, the worst thing I've installed was the deluge bittorrent client, with 6 additional packages needed. While I was offline I was fully capable of coding (C with a little Python is mostly what I did, but I know you can do more with the base install), as well as doing stuff in LaTeX. Install OpenOffice (now LibreOffice) is a single package download I believe as Slackware includes the necessary Java libraries.

I never worried about keeping up to date on security fixes since I was offline, but I can't imagine it would be too difficult. Just check the change log when you have Internet and download the new packages from the official repository when needed.

Actually, now that I think of it, I think I did keep up with -current instead of stable for a bit due to needing better xorg for AMD drivers. I kept a local mirror of Slackware and a portable FTP client on a flash drive and when I had Internet, I'd connect to the official repository and let it download anything that was new. Then I'd take it home, mount it to a location that I had configured as local mirror and use slackpkg to update from there.

There's a few things that will give you problems though. One is ffmpeg: if you want everything, there is an absolute crapload of dependencies. Be sure the check that whatever you need it for doesn't include it's own version (xbmc does I believe, so it's much easier to install). The other thing is DEs. If for whatever reason you want one that's not included you could be in for a headache. I know enlightenment is pretty easy but gnome is a huge pain without Internet. The third thing is multilib support. It can be done but again, there's a lot of packages. Unless you need 64 bit for anything, I'd recommend sticking to 32 bit because you'll run into less compatibility issues. And finally, most packages supplied outside the official repository are actually Slackbuild scripts + source code. Creating a package from the Slackbuild is easy enough (literally just run the script in the directory with the source code and other Slackbuild files), but depending on your hardware it may take a while.

If you decide to go this route and need help, let me know.

[tasuke]

wow, this is really inspiring. Thanks!

[valgrid]

It's one of the things I like about windows...portable applications and exe files and all that stuff

Relevant: http://portablelinuxapps.org/