General Question

Storms's avatar

How can I install programs on Hardy Heron with no internet connection?

Asked by Storms (811points) April 4th, 2010

I have an Ubuntu box that doesn’t even have a network card and won’t for reasons I’ll not get into here. When I first got it, I figured I could download executables to a different computer and transfer them to the Ubuntu box with a flash drive. But I can only find Linux programs in a version that directly installs them via download. As a result, my linux box is currently pretty much useless. Is there any way to install programs without a direct download to the linux box?

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4 Answers

dpworkin's avatar

Download .tar packages, and unzip them on the Linux box.

the100thmonkey's avatar

You will likely be able to find .deb packages (should work for most Debian derivatives) for each specific program you want to install, but the problem you have without an internet connection is the libraries needed by the software you want to install. For example, Skype for Ubuntu (running GNOME) is built on the Qt Framework, which is used in KDE.

.deb packages can be run from a flash drive, but your problem is going to be dependency hell.

Vincentt's avatar

Yeah, all packages you can install from Ubuntu can be downloaded from packages.ubuntu.com, but you also have to manually download all dependencies.

One day, I’m going to write a website that can automatically download them all for you.

Storms's avatar

@Vincentt Well, I look forward to that day.

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