Arch Linux

steaktartaar

Member

Registered: 2014-10-14

Posts: 1

Pacman: install package from local disk withou database refresh

Basically what it says in the title.

I've just installed Arch on a notebook that doesn't have a working ethernet jack. To get wifi working I need wpa-supplicant, so I downloaded the package using another machine. When I try to install it with pacman -U wpa-supplicant.pkg.tar.xz, pacman complains it doesn't have a database (which is probably right since I f*cked up /var), and without a network connection I can't do a pacman -Syu.

Can I force pacman to do the install, or do I have to install wpa-supplicant manually?

bstaletic

Member

Registered: 2014-02-02

Posts: 658

Re: Pacman: install package from local disk withou database refresh

One of the not so good solutions would be compiling wpa_supplicant the old "./configure && make && make install" way. You'd get the internet pacman would be able to rebuild the database etc. The problem is installing this way doesn't inform system it has been installed, which can lead to stability issues. You would need to (after rebuilding the database) remove evry file "make install" installed. Removing is not the problem if wpa_supplicant has "make clean" directive.

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Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 29,556

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Re: Pacman: install package from local disk withou database refresh

There is not point in rebuilding the wpa_supplicant.  If you are going to manually install it and you have the built package, just manually install the prebuild binary you already have.

I am not sure if manually installing is the best approach, but if it is just unpack the package, then copy the files to the appropriate place in the root directory.

When you get up and running, you will need to delete these and install wpa_supplicant via pacman - or you you could use --force for this one single package: pacman --force -S wpa_supplicant in order to overwrite the existing conflicting files.

I suspect there is a better means to regenerate a simple starter database.  You can download the sync databases from your mirror manually.

Last edited by Trilby (2014-10-14 14:31:10)

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Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 4,092

Re: Pacman: install package from local disk withou database refresh

If your local pacman db is fucked then reinstall. It is the only sane way to fix it.  (there are tools to parse the pacman log if you still have that one, and populate the db from it, but ymmv with them)

edit: by local I mean /var/lib/pacman/local/

Last edited by Mr.Elendig (2014-10-14 15:16:57)

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