How To Installing software offline/from DVD in Fedora 15 ?

[talk2devid]

Respected Members,

Currently i am using Fedora 15. My question is - how do i build repository in fedora using fedora installation DVD and later on i can install the software from that repository ?

second issue is - my friend don't have internet connection. so, how do i install the software like - VLC, amarok, and other players offline ? i have downloaded software from RPMFusion, but i am unable to install them. during the installation process, it shows error like - "Can't install src.rpm". there is any other resources where i can get the rpm files so that i can download them and send to my friend and he can install it without any internet connection ?

Please suggest

[atreyu]

make a dir to hold the RPMS and copy them from your DVD (mounted at /mnt/dvd I assume here) to this dir:

mkdir -p /F15repo/RPMS
find /mnt/dvd/ -name '*.rpm' -exec cp -v {} /F15repo/RPMS/ \;

Create the repo (might need to 'yum install createrepo' first):

createrepo /F15repo

put the below contents in a file called /etc/yum.repos.d/F15local.repo

[F15local]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - Local
baseurl=file:///F15repo/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora

now do this to make sure you can see your new F15local repo:

yum repolist

now list the available RPMS:

yum --disablerepo=* --enablerepo=F15local list available

As to your 2nd issue, you don't want to install src (source) rpms. you want binary ones (.i386, .noarch, etc.). Also, you have to be root to install them. The best way to download them is to get them straight from the repository for your distro though. what is your friend's distro?

[talk2devid]

Both of us shifted from ubuntu to fedora for last 15 days... but still we are under the darkness

[DL Neil]

Like the OP I have moved to Fedora for my GUI m/c (in my case, sticking with CentOS/RHEL for servers).

The local repository instructions make good sense. However they only apply to original installations - whether of the entire distro or single applications.

Would you suggest collecting a second repository for the regular security and progressive updates to Fedora?

Having several servers, I have an Updates repository for CentOS, but Fedora's range of applications is so much wider that there is a much larger number of applications being updated - many of which are irrelevant (to my systems). I'm wondering if it is worth the traffic costs, indeed if it is common practice for people with multiple Fedora machines?

Regards,
=dn

[atreyu]

That is exactly what I do. I have basically the Fedora Everything and the Fedora Updates repos available to my servers that are not on an internet connection. I did a one-time wget of the entire contents of the respective repos and then rsyncd them to my internal Fedora Repo server. Then for the Updates, I grab just the updates to the Updates repo and sync them over, every week or so. Not a heavy traffic cost there.

It's true, I don't use nearly any of the packages in the Everything repo, and a lot of the Updates repo goes unused, but it is worth it to me knowing that I have absolutely everything that the "live" version of the Fedora repos has, and it doesn't really cost that much traffic-wise, b/c i'm only grabbing the latest Updates, which don't happen often enough to cause significant traffic problems.

[DL Neil]

atreyu, thank you for your response.

A quick analysis of my local mirror site shows:
Fedora/15/i386/os/Packages at 3.43GB
- corresponding to the i386/iso/Fedora-15-i386-DVD.iso at 3.56GB

The updates/15/i386 directory already holds 6.50GB and we're only one month on from Fred15's release!!
- updates/14/i386 is sitting at a whopping 23.13GB.

So whilst your full download offers a comfort-factor and is an easy cron job to set-up, it seems to belie your comment "Not a heavy traffic cost there". Hence my original question.

What am I missing?

[atreyu]

yes, that IS a lot! but what I mean (and am hoping - but I don't use F15 at work, i'm stuck on F11/12) is that once you get the main wad of Updates downloaded, there won't be an onslaught of updates every subsequent day/week/whatever. but maybe i am wrong.

also, you probably are already doing this, but you should be sure that your downloading technique is just getting the delta i.e. additional RPMS or newer RPMS that replace older ones.

[DL Neil]

atreyu,

Your hope was that "there won't be an onslaught of updates" after the >6GB I reported as already present in the F15 Updates repository.

However if we look at the F14 figure, it was reported as "a whopping 23.13GB". If we say that occured over the existence of F14 and called that either six or seven months, then F14 updates would average 3~4GB pcm. In other words, the equivalent of a new distro by DVD, every month!

Compared to my monthly figures that's "whopping" and if I have to pay premium rates my ISP will be "whooping"!

I would use rsync to maintain a local repository (at least, that's what I do for CentOS at the moment).

Because I'm only using the 32-bit version, I have disregarded/not measured the updates/15/SRPMS or updates/15/x86-64 directories.

The updates/15/i386 directory (yesterday) was 6.5GB. Within that there are three sub-directories: .../debug = 3.83GB, .../drpms = 236.5MB, and .../repodata = 10.9MB. Are you suggesting that I can rsync --exclude one or more of these?
eg .../debug if I'm not doing any C|C++ programming.

Am I correct in observing that the delta rpms are not as complete as the ordinary rpms in the updates repository?

[atreyu]

Ah, I don't pay for ISP, so I see your concern. Well, I guess it comes down to how badly you need/want the updates. You can always "cheat" - this is what I do for some distros. I download the list of RPMS in the updates directory to a file called "listing" and put that in my repo dir. I have a cronjob that runs daily which updates this file. Then when I need or want a particular package to be updated, I just see if that package is listed in listing - if it is, I download it, update my repodata and yum install it. kludgy, but it works for me - not good for average yum client/users though.

I don't think you need the debug RPMS dir, I'd exclude that. The drpms are for clients directly accessing the internet-hosted yum repo, so I don't see how that would serve you, since you are a local copy of the repo - i'd exclude that, too. The repodata dir is important, any new RPMS added to the updates dir are reflect in files in that dir, so you can do one of two things:
1. include the repodata dir
2. exclude the repodata dir and update the repo yourself with

createrepo --update <REPO_DIR>

Yeah, as I understand it, the delta RPMS are just those parts of the package that have changed - it is a yum convenience. Again, I don't think it applies in your situation.

btw, have you ever checked out Mirror Manager? I have never used it, nor know what performance is like, but thought it might be of interest.

[asto_prad]

make a dir to hold the RPMS and copy them from your DVD (mounted at /mnt/dvd I assume here) to this dir:

mkdir -p /F15repo/RPMS
find /mnt/dvd/ -name '*.rpm' -exec cp -v {} /F15repo/RPMS/ \;

Create the repo (might need to 'yum install createrepo' first):

createrepo /F15repo

put the below contents in a file called /etc/yum.repos.d/F15local.repo

[F15local]
name=Fedora $releasever - $basearch - Local
baseurl=file:///F15repo/
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora

now do this to make sure you can see your new F15local repo:

yum repolist

now list the available RPMS:

yum --disablerepo=* --enablerepo=F15local list available

As to your 2nd issue, you don't want to install src (source) rpms. you want binary ones (.i386, .noarch, etc.). Also, you have to be root to install them. The best way to download them is to get them straight from the repository for your distro though. what is your friend's distro?

Hi atreyu -
I did exactly the way you mentioned to get the DVD repository.
but I get following error when

#yum repolist
Loaded plugins : langpacks,presto, refresh-packagekit
Error : cannot retrieve metalink for repository: fedora.please verify its path and try again

Kindly help