Saving RPM files

[william]

I was just wondering if it'd be possible to save the files that we use to update the system. I've already downloaded more than 1 GB of rpms to keep MDK 10 updated (cooker >CE> Official, whatever) and according to what I could see there are more files there in the mirrors to be downloaded. Actually, I would like to save future time in the case I have to reinstall the OS.

 

I did a search in the system but didn't find where these rpms are stored.

 

Thanks

[Cannonfodder]

hmmm don't recall of the top of my head, but look for a folder called

 

RPMS

 

maybe /usr/RPMS ? Problem is that the updater tends to delete them after update so they are not cluttering up your system. Probably a setting to discourage this..

[spinynorman]

If you use urpmi with the --noclean option, the packages will be left in /var/cache/urpmi/rpms.

[bvc]

oh, and no, for some reason that no one could even imagine, mandrake doesn't give us that option with rpmdrake

[william]

I had already checked if /usr/rpms was an option, but no success.

This issue could be a good point for improvement, to be checked by the developers in the future.

Thanks.

Edited April 24, 2004 by william

[WilliamS]

I don't urpmi them directly, but instead get the list of needed ones from package manager, then manually download these to a created folder, then do genhdlist ./ <name-of-file>

urpmi.addmedia <name-fof-file> ://home/william/<name-of-file>

Then urpmi will get them from the file instead of from internet, and on re-install of mdk saves many hours.

 

 

:D

[AussieJohn]

Hi WilliamS.

 

I use the same as you do. The only time I have come a little unstuck is when I have not downloaded other than what I think I needed and then when using urpmi to install the programs it tells me one has a dependency need. You guessed it one of the ones I didn't download. But that is no big deal, I just went back online and downloaded the extras needed.

 

One other trick I used to do is find the folder that the rpms were being downloaded to and while the last one or two were being downloaded, I would CUT and paste them into another folder and when the last one was completed downloading, urpmi would stop the install process because the other rpms were not there as it expected them to be so at that time I would COPY that last one or two rpms to the folder I had set up for the other rpms and then COPY ALL of them back to their original download place. I then reactivated the install process which would run to completion but I now had safely stored copies of all of the rpms which I then burnt onto a CDROM creating my own ERRATA disk.

Tedious??? Not at all especially when ever I did reinstalls I had all the ERRATA and any other stuff ready to reinstall also without having to download it all over again.

 

When you consider ERRATA has rpms for a whole load of other stuff you don't need or use then this method also picked up all the dependencys of the stuff you selected.

Using the first method meant an occasional further downloading sometimes.