I supplied it to her after she lost most of her stuff in some recent Bush Fires.
She is currently unable to access the Internet.
I want to be able to Update her computer, and possibly add some apps.
I am thinking I should be able to do this by supplying a HDD with the current Stable Repo on it.
I’ve been reading though various ‘Offfline’ installation methods that use pacman, but I don’t see anything, that in my reading of the material seems relevant to exactly what I am trying to achieve.
Can someone point me in the right direction or suggest how I might do this.
tracy@daphne:/run/media/tracy/e17fa113-15a8-41f6-96ea-20ed16243d27$ mkdir -p mates_pkgs
tracy@daphne:/run/media/tracy/e17fa113-15a8-41f6-96ea-20ed16243d27$ ls
mates_pkgs
tracy@daphne:/run/media/tracy/e17fa113-15a8-41f6-96ea-20ed16243d27$ sudo pacman -Syu
[sudo] password for tracy:
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core is up to date
extra is up to date
community is up to date
multilib is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
warning: manjaro-hello: local (0.7.0-6) is newer than extra (0.7.0-5)
there is nothing to do
tracy@daphne:/run/media/tracy/e17fa113-15a8-41f6-96ea-20ed16243d27$ sudo pacman -Sw --cachedir ./mates_pkgs - < mates_pkglist_native.txt
bash: mates_pkglist_native.txt: No such file or directory
tracy@daphne:/run/media/tracy/e17fa113-15a8-41f6-96ea-20ed16243d27$ paru -Saw --cachedir ./mates_pkgs - < mates_pkglist_alien.txt
bash: mates_pkglist_alien.txt: No such file or directory
tracy@daphne:/run/media/tracy/e17fa113-15a8-41f6-96ea-20ed16243d27$
You need the list of installed packages … which is outlined in the first steps.
Those lists are pretty small so could feasibly be sent over a cellular network if necessary.
yes but @tracyanne doesn’t owe this. it’s really a tricky situation. may i ask what are the actual needs that you have to update and what additional software should be installed ? maybe there’s a different workaround to fix the situation.
Is there never to be contact? Or how will this non-local problem be traversed in the future?
Maybe we can assume that you cannot get things from there … but will be able to go there later?
Anyhoo … Without the package lists … there seems 3 options to me:
Clone the whole repos
Guess
Use the desktop, if known, to create a package list (possibly added to)
Obviously options 1 and 2 are pretty heavy and unreliable.
Option 3 is only really possible if we know the desktop .(and any extra programs)… and that its also known it hasnt changed from this state.
Maybe @tracyanne can tell us if #3 is an option … in which case that package list can be created.
what i’m thinking about actually is to create a image for a qemu/kvm that has all the needed apps. in this case it should be possible to use this image as the new system. but it implies to install qemu/kvm what should be possible by installing it from a local storage. so ship a storage with the qemu/kvm tar’s and the image, install qemu/kvm from this storage and then use/copy the image to your friends storage.
Yes, I don’t own the computer… well sort of, it’s complicated.
My friend knows how to use a few applications, like a Word processor, for example, her 12 year old Grand daughter is mostly using the computer, but due to an abusive family situation is barely competent as well.
Basically I gave my friend the computer so she could do stuff that needs to be put into digital formats, for Social Services etc.
As a consequence I have the root password.
We see our friend about once a fortnight, when we take them food. That’s a long story, and also complicated.
As a consequence I’m not sure how easy it would be to get the requisite data, at this moment.
I understand that OP doesnt own the computer or have it in front of them … but what packages need updating? How are we arriving at whatever conclusion?
The easiest and most correct way is to of course create a list on the running system … failing that … do we know if its just the packages that come with the manjaro ISO ?
that’s why i’m thinking about a preconfigured vm-image that can be used at the actual system. i’m 100% sure that it doesn’t exceed 32gb and that’s a size that can be easy shipped on a sd-card or an usb-stick and as long qemu/kvm is installed will work regardless of the existing system.
hello @tracyanne
the idea is to create a “image” for a virtual-machine. this image can be copied and used on any other computer as long as the virtual-machine-manager is installed on it. the idea is to install the virtual-machine-app to your friends computer (that’s possible because it’s only a single application that can be installed with a local installation) and afterwards you can use the prepared image (that you create on your computer with all the needed apps) and you send this image file to your friend. he just needs to start the image with the vm-manager and voila he has a new system.
There has been a few questions over the years on this exact topic.
This can be done using rsync - for some testing purpose I created the script to mimic an incomplete manjaro mirror with only stable branch.
The script must be amended as the variables was for my hosted setup
#!/bin/sh
#######################################################
####
#### Variables to amend
####
TARGET="/var/www/nix.dk/public_html/repos/manjaro"
TMP="/var/www/nix.dk/.cache/manjaro"
LOCK="/var/www/nix.dk/.cache/rsync-manjaro.lock"
#SOURCE="rsync://ftp.halifax.rwth-aachen.de/manjaro/"
SOURCE="rsync://repo.nix.dk/manjaro/"
[ ! -d "${TARGET}" ] && mkdir -p "${TARGET}"
[ ! -d "${TMP}" ] && mkdir -p "${TMP}"
exec 9>"${LOCK}"
flock -n 9 || exit
if ! stty &>/dev/null; then
QUIET="-q"
fi
##################################################
###
### This rsync command creates a copy of stable repo
### where symlinks are converted to regular files
### Expect the size to be around 70GB to 80GB
###
##################################################
rsync -rtLv --safe-links \
--delete-after --progress \
-h ${QUIET} --timeout=600 --contimeout=300 -p \
--delay-updates --no-motd \
--exclude="arm*" \
--exclude="pool" \
--exclude="testing" \
--exclude="unstable" \
--exclude="stable/kde-unstable" \
--temp-dir="${TMP}" \
${SOURCE} \
"${TARGET}"
rm -f ${LOCK}
To actually use this to update an offline system - one must resort to either a local webserver like the builtin python or add a filebased repo to pacman.conf where I am in favor of running a local http service.
The device you intend to use - make sure label the filesystem - because labelling will give you a predicatble mountpoint when you instruct the not so tech-minded friend.
E.g. if you label the device ManjaroRepo - it will mount at /run/media/$USERNAME/ManjaroRepo and you can then use this command