Re: tomorrow's meeting

[Jeff Licquia <jeff@licquia.org>]

On Tue, 2002-09-24 at 11:08, Erich Schroeder wrote:
> Did you come up with anything? I'd like to hear an overview of what's new 
> in "Null/RH 8.0". It would be interesting to talk about how "apt-able" 
> cdroms are made (like those available from:
> 
> http://www-ccrma.stanford.edu/planetccrma/software/apt.html
> 
> and I know that our SUSE users would be interested in hearing if there are
> apt repositories available/possible for them.

Well, I haven't delved into the apt-rpm code too much (yet!), but I know
how apt works in regards to Debian CDs, so maybe this will help.

When you run "apt-cdrom add", apt-cdrom looks at the CD and generates an
ID for it, comparing it with an ID stored on the CD as a sanity check. 
It sticks this ID in its internal databases and puts a sources.list line
in that refers to a nice full-text CD title.  It then copies a database
of what packages are on the CD into another location.

Then, when you install something or upgrade, apt uses the information it
copied from the CDs along with any information it may have downloaded
from online sources.  When it comes time to install a package from one
of the CDs, it stops and asks for it.  It's also smart enough to arrange
the package installation process to ask for the CDs sequentially if
possible.

So, making an apt-able CD involves generating a few files and putting
them on the CD: a nice description of the CD (no, it doesn't use the CD
title), the package databases, and the calculated ID file.  I can tell
you what those files are for Debian, but I don't have any idea what they
are for RPM.  On Debian, I can also tell you that the files are the same
format for both; you can copy a Debian CD to your hard disk and give apt
"file:" URIs in sources.list and it will work.


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