Damn Small Apt Walkthrough

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Damn Small Apt Walkthrough
started by: Grim

Posted by Grim on April 11 2004,23:47

Apt is the user-friendly front-end for Dpkg, the Debian Package Manager. Apt will not work with DSL right out of the box. The reason for this is that the project maintainer has removed the Dpkg database to save space for other applications on the 50MB CD.

All commands are surrounded by tickmarks (`'). The tickmarks should not be typed into the console when entering these commands. Failure to remove tickmarks will cause the commands to fail. You have been warned.

In order to get Apt working again, a script, dpkg-restore, has been written and included in the distribution to restore the Dpkg database which will, in turn, get Apt working again.

To run this script, you must be root.
* Open a terminal, type `sudo su'
* type `dpkg-restore'.
This will get you a mostly working version of apt. There are packages that will not install because of an issue with the busybox version of tar included in the Damn Small CD. If you are attempting to make a Damn Small remaster you will need a full version of tar. HD Install users with version 0.6.2 and newer that opted to install the full GNU utilities won't suffer from this problem and may safely skip to Adding Repositories to the sources.list.

To install the full version of Tar for remasters or for users that didn't HD Install Damn Small 0.6.2 with the full GNU utilities, do the following.
* Make sure you're root (Open a terminal, type `sudo su')
* type `wget < http://grimthing.com/downloads/tar' >
* type `rm /bin/tar`
* type `mv tar /bin`

Adding Repositories to the sources.list

Editing the sources.list
Once you've installed the full version of tar you're ready to start adding repositories to your sources.list. The sources.list contains all of the different places where you can download and install software.

To edit the sources.list, you must be root.
* type `scite /etc/apt/sources.list'
From within scite, you can add or remove repositories. A good source for unofficial repositories is located at < http://apt-get.org/. > Unofficial repositories are a good source for more "bleeding-edge" apps, such as mplayer, that won't be found in a stable Debian-like distribution such as Damn Small.

Adding CD's to the sources.list to install software locally
Primarily, apt is meant to update your system over a network. However, Apt has a mechanisim to add CD's to the sources.list to allow users to install software from CD. CD images's full of apt-compatible software can be downloaded at the following locations:
* < Debian list of mirrors that one can use to find, download and burn packages to CD for use in local installs >
*< A mirror of the official Debian Woody binary images >
Once you have burned the image to CD, insert the disc into your primary CD-ROM device and do the following as root:
* type `apt-cdrom add'
This will add the CD to your sources.list and allow you to use apt to install software locally.

Installing Software with Apt
Once you've added the repositories you wish to use, you can confidently install software to your system using apt. To get an idea of what software is available for you to install with your sources, type `dpkg -l | less' from a root terminal. Once you've found a piece of software you want to install, open a terminal, `sudo su' to root, and type `apt-get install packagename'. If you've set up your sources.list to install from CD, you will want to ensure that the software CD you previously burnt is in your CD-ROM before you issue the previous command. Once you've hit enter, messages will start scrolling onscreen and should tell you when apt exits successfully.

Congratulations, you've just installed your first piece of software using apt. If you've had any problems, please re-read the above instructions and see if there's any detail you may have skipped. If you're more graphically oriented, you may want to use Synaptic to control your software installation. Synaptic is a graphical front-end for apt, and there are a number of newer users that prefer it until they become more comfortable with the command line. There is an extensive < Synaptic Install Script Thread > for users that would prefer the graphical front-end.

If you want to learn more about apt, such as using apt to build packages from source, read the < Official Debian Apt HOWTO >.

Posted by hasty on April 12 2004,08:59

Great job Grim.
Got any more up your sleeve?

........ newer users & command line :laugh:

(Ooh Daddy, Daddy, is that a real dinosaur?)

Posted by dbennett on April 12 2004,17:23

Thanks, Grim. That was great!

Posted by nugget on May 21 2004,13:37

so thats how I find out what I can install and the package names...

Posted by michaldck on May 28 2004,21:08

If apt-get is installed, i prefer to:
apt-get update; apt-get install apt-spy; apt-spy; apt-get update
Warning !!! working with APT-SPY takes more then 10minutes on 512/128 Adsl !

BTW, you can use switch -e [ho many servers want to test]