[Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

San2ban · 2012-06-09 02:28:51

Dear Archers
Moved to new house. Telephone line / broadband yet to be connected. I had not installed wvdial earlier (for USB wireless modem)
I got the packages on USB flash drive, plugged to PC, gave pacman -U command, specifying the file path. Instead of unpacking and installing, this command asks to download from net.
I put these .pkg.tar.xz packages on my home directory, tried pacman-U command. Still, it wants to download from net.
Where am I erring?
I have not upgraded from last 2 weeks, for want of net connection

Last edited by San2ban (2012-06-10 09:02:56)

Allan · 2012-06-09 02:33:13

Post the actual command you are using and the output.

San2ban · 2012-06-09 02:45:59

Allan
As I have said earlier, no net connection. Posting from browsing centre near my house

Allan · 2012-06-09 02:55:53

Well, we will have to attribute it to user error if you can not provide actual information...

headkase · 2012-06-09 02:57:36

If you have a smart-phone and the onscreen text all fits onto one screen you may be able to get a legible picture out of it. Just put the picture on imgur.com or similar and link to it. Sorry you'd have to walk home and then walk back to the Internet Cafe however.

Trilby · 2012-06-09 04:45:53

No need for a smart phone and camera if you just have a flash drive. copy the output to a text file, save to USB ...

Without further information there really isn't much that can be offered here. My first thought is that pacman is trying to resolve dependencies. Do you have all the dependencies installed? If not, did you download all the packages and install them in the proper order?

If you do pacman -U on vdial before you do pacman -U on it's dependencies, pacman has no way of knowing the other packages are on disk, and it will try to download them. Perhaps there is a cool option in pacman to only look for dependencies locally (I suspect there probably is), but it would seem simplest to me to just install them in the proper order using pacman -U.

San2ban · 2012-06-09 05:12:09

Trilby,
I have downloaded all dependencies for wvdial (wvstreams etc). but, they are different .pkg.tar.xz.
So, when I command pacman -U wvdial, I am not referencing those dependent packages. Correct?
So, at a time, I can install only one package, one after the other, I will have to finish it.
But, this attempt to download from net, when all packages are actually present on USB flash, home/user directory, I cannot understand

headkase · 2012-06-09 05:26:58

You need to install the packages "bottom-up." You can do it trial-and-error if all else fails. Basically, install the packages that have no dependencies first. Or only have dependencies to what is already installed as part of the base system. Then keep trying all the other packages. Eventually, if you do indeed have all the required packages on a USB stick or whatever, you'll build "up" to wvdial and then when you install that all the other packages that it needs will already have been installed first.

Look at it like a "tree" of relationships between the packages:

 a
 ^
b c
  ^
 d e

If "a" was wvdial and "b" and "c" were dependencies for it then you would install "d" and "e" first as they are dependencies of "c" and then "c" would install, then you would install "b" and then "a" would install. Go as many packages "deep" as you require until all dependencies are satisfied.

A issue that is possible to run into is say one of the packages requires a higher-version of a package you have installed in the base system. If you did a net-install you should have the newest packages. However if you did a cd-based install it is possible that some of the packages required for wvdial may not be the minimum version needed. If that happens then you would likely run into so many dependency problems that it would just be easier to bring the machine to an internet-connected-ethernet-port and use that.

Last edited by headkase (2012-06-09 05:37:46)

Trilby · 2012-06-09 05:36:24

In addition to going "bottom-up" you'll also need ALL dependencies.

The wvdial page only lists three, but each of those will have their own dependencies.

The first two you may already have the dependencies for - but wvstreams has some dependencies that are not part of the base install.

Then of course each of those may in turn have further dependencies.

You'll need all of these (recursively) in tar.gz form unless they are already installed on the system. Then start running pacman -U pkg from the deepest level and work your way back up to wvdial.

EDIT: if there are a lot of dependencies I'd suggest not bothering trying to install them in the proper order, just dump all of them into some new temporary directory, navigate to that directory, then run `pacman -U *`. Pacman will read in the files to install from before it checks for dependencies, and so it should not need to download anything provided all the needed tar.gz files are in that directory.

Last edited by Trilby (2012-06-09 05:38:06)

San2ban · 2012-06-10 09:01:21

Trilby, headkase

Followed your suggestion to the dot. Everything's fine now. Yes, there were some dependencies missing for dependencies of wvdial. Posting rom my PC now.
Thanks.

headkase · 2012-06-10 19:35:49

Right on, you're welcome. Trilby's "pacman -U *" was a more elegant solution than what I posted. I believe I explained dependency relationships fairly well however..

Xyne · 2012-06-10 20:08:23

There is a much better way to do this that will avoid all of the manual work and maintain sane install reasons (dependencies vs explicitly installed).

Download all of the packages to a directory (<foo>). Then do this:

cd <foo>
repo-add local.db.tar.xz *.pkg.*

In /etc/pacman.conf, add the following lines above "[core]"

[local]
Server=file://<foo>

Again, "<foo>" is the full path to the directory containing the packages and repo, e.g. "/home/bob/repos/local", which would make the line in pacman:

[local]
Server=file:///home/bob/repos/local

Note the 3 "/" after "file:".

After that, run "pacman -Sy" and then you can install packages from the repo with full dependency resolution as usual.

If you want an easy way to download all of the packages that you need, take a look at pm2ml. It can generate metalinks that you can use on another computer to download packages (with dependencies) and databases, e.g. "pm2ml --all-deps base-devel xorg lxde". Copy the metalink to a USB key, then use it on another computer to download all of the packages (e.g. with aria2c, down-them-all in Firefox, etc)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-09 02:28:51

[Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#2 2012-06-09 02:33:13

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#3 2012-06-09 02:45:59

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#4 2012-06-09 02:55:53

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#5 2012-06-09 02:57:36

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#6 2012-06-09 04:45:53

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#7 2012-06-09 05:12:09

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#8 2012-06-09 05:26:58

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#9 2012-06-09 05:36:24

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#10 2012-06-10 09:01:21

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#11 2012-06-10 19:35:49

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

#12 2012-06-10 20:08:23

Re: [Solved] pacman -U wants to download package

Board footer