[lug] Personal 'layer'

[David L. Anselmi]

Scott Rohling wrote:
> A more elegant solution is probably to have make a .deb file (or .rpm for
> RH/SUSE/etc) which 'requires' the packages I want to install and then just
> install  that.

To make a package like this you need a file containing this:

Section: misc
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.8.0
Package: mypackages
Maintainer: David Anselmi <anselmi at anselmi.us>
Depends: amarok xpdf x3270 prism k9copy vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras
Description: <short description; defaults to some wise words>
  This depends on the packages I like to install.

Build a .deb with "equivs-build <file>" and put it in a directory where 
you keep local .debs (maybe /home/foo/debs.

In that directory run "dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null | gzip > Packages.gz".

In /etc/apt/sources.list put a line that says "deb file:/home/foo/debs ./".

Now you can install your packages with aptitude.  (This is a poor man's 
repository, you'll get warnings about packages from an untrusted source. 
  So you can use dpkg instead if you don't care about losing the 
dependency tracking.)

> Some of my apps aren't part of the repository (or I prefer to get them from
> the source) and I have .deb files for them in my /home.  So thus another
> script:

These can be put in with your dummy .debs.  Or if they don't conflict 
with official packages you can put them in the dummy .deb with the 
others (and their sources in sources.list).

> Ok - so that's my 'easy' solution to creating a 'personal layer' to add onto
> a new or rebuilt distro --   what do other people do?

I don't reinstall Linux.  New machines have a new purpose so they don't 
get the same packages as others.

Dave