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Content Tagged with Maintenance + Administration
Installing Packages on Computers with Slow Connections Redux
Earlier, I had written about using apt-zip to upgrade computers on slow internet connections by using a faster machine to do the downloads. However, since that involves understanding how apt-zip works, and a small learning curve, here is a hack that should work pretty well, in spite of it’s hackish nature.
The tip here will let you install new packages (and their dependencies) or upgrade a system by using a faster internet connection to do the downloading. First we get the URIs for the pacakges to be downloaded, then we download the packages and transport them to the computer with the slower connection. Thanks to Ewan for this tip posted to the ubuntu-users list a long time ago.
The steps:
1) On the computer you wish to install something new on (or upgrade), do a $sudo apt-get update
2) Then use apt-get to generate a list of the packages it needs to download, in order to install the package that you need, but not download them:
$sudo apt-get -qq --print-uris install name-of-package | cut -d\' -f 2 > urilist
this gives you a file ‘urilist’ in the same directory as the one in which you ran the previous command, with a list of files to download.
3) Take your list to a machine with a fast internet connection and download the packages using wget:
$wget -i < urilist
4) Take your newly downloaded debs home and copy them into the
/var/cache/apt/archives/ directory
5) Rerun the same apt-get command, but without any special parameters:
$ sudo apt-get install name-of-package
apt-get should tell you the quantity of packages that it will install,
and how much it will download. The download amount should be zero since
the packages are already downloaded.
Read Emails from your System using Evolution
The system installed on your PC sends you mails. You usually see a message saying “You have new mail.” when you open a new terminal window. Some of these emails report errors, when things didn’t go right. Some list things that need to be done after some software is installed/upgraded. In any case, the assumption is that you read these mails. You can also send other users on the system mail messages using this system, but since I assume this is only for a standalone PC with users you can talk to if needed (I am sure your significant other would rather hear what you have to say, that read it in a system mail message 
)
You can read them using pine or mutt (after you install them) from the command line, but what’s better is that you can read them using Evolution. Follow the instructions below to do so:
In Evolution:
- Select Edit->Preferences
- Select the “Mail Accounts” tab and click “Add”
- Fill in the required fields, when asked for e-mail address, input USERNAME@HOSTNAME (where USERNAME is your username and HOSTNAME is the hostname of the machine (try “localhost” if you aren’t sure)
- For “Server Type in Receiving Email”, select “Local Delivery”. In input box Path enter: /var/spool/mail/USERNAME (replace USERNAME with your username).
- Follow throw and complete creating the account
You’re done. Now you can read the local system mail using Evolution.
