Use the official Ubuntu Software Library to build a DVD image

1 Preliminary note

This tutorial is inspired by a articles I read at Http://cargol.net/~ramon/ubuntu-dvd-en. So many-Ramon Acedo (the one who made this HowTo, originally)

The pages are not reachable from some weeks, now. I saved the page to read it off-line. So ...

I found it useful. I hope it is the same for you.

2 Introduction

This howto offers a simple way of creating DVD images of Debian or Ubuntu http/ftp repositories.

Ubuntu doesn ' t offer DVDs ready to download and its main, universe, multiverse and/or and restricted repositories. With the contents of the ' this howto ' can do it yourself.

Has the Ubuntu or Debian repositories on DVD can is useful for those users who don t have access to the Internet where They have their Ubuntu installed but have access somewhere else to download the repository and build and burn the DVDs.

3 Building a local mirror

We have to install Debmirror:sudo apt-get install Debmirror

Now we have the Ubuntu repositories in a local directory. In the example below we have main, universe and Multiverse sections of the repository in the i386.

Debmirror--nosource-m--passive--host=archive.ubuntulinux.org--root=ubuntu/--method=ftp--progress- -section=main,multiverse,universe--arch=i386 ubuntu/--IGNORE-RELEASE-GPG

You are could the options below as you prefer:

--host-the URL of the repository.

--dist-the distro of your OS (dapper, edgy, sarge, ...).

--section-the section your want to mirror locally.

--arch-the Architecture of your box.

4 separating the archive into dvd-sized directories

The repositories we got are too big (about 30Gb) to burn them to a DVD so we have to separate into them.

The tool debpartial would do it for us.

sudo apt-get install debpartial

We make the directory where the volumes'll reside.

mkdir Ubuntu-dvd

And we make it to construct the package descriptors to every volume.

Debpartial--nosource--dirprefix=ubuntu--section=main,universe,multiverse--dist=dapper--size=DVD ubuntu-dvd/

Now we have the packages into the directories debpartial has just. The script debcopy which also comes with the debpartial package would do it. The script needs Ruby.

sudo apt-get install Ruby

If everything is ok ...

Ruby Debcopy Ubuntu/ubuntu-dvd/ubuntu0

Ruby Debcopy UBUNTU/UBUNTU-DVD/UBUNTU1

Ruby Debcopy UBUNTU/UBUNTU-DVD/UBUNTU2

Where ubuntu/is The directory with the complete repository created with Debmirror and ubuntu-dvd/* are the directories re Ady to host the new Dvd-ready repository.

If we want to make soft links from the complete repository instead of copying the packages we can call Debcopy with the OP Tion-l:

Ruby-l debcopy ubuntu/ubuntu-dvd/ubuntu0

Ruby-l debcopy UBUNTU/UBUNTU-DVD/UBUNTU1

Ruby-l debcopy UBUNTU/UBUNTU-DVD/UBUNTU2

Now every directory (ubuntu0, UBUNTU1 and UBUNTU2) fits on one DVD.

5 Making ISO Images

To get the directories ubuntu0, UBUNTU1, UBUNTU2 into an ISO-image ready to burn we-can use Mkisofs:

Mkisofs-f-j-r-o ubuntu-dvd-0.iso ubuntu-dvd/ubuntu0

Mkisofs-f-j-r-o ubuntu-dvd-1.iso ubuntu-dvd/ubuntu1

Mkisofs-f-j-r-o ubuntu-dvd-2.iso ubuntu-dvd/ubuntu2

Now you can burn the ISO images or mount them. Add them to the/etc/apt/source.list with the command:

sudo apt-cdrom add

Now we can verify the new repositories ...

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

... and, if I explain in the right way, you should have your box upgraded.