List of sections :

Introduction

Source

Synaptic

Konsole

Repositories

Local Repositories

Backup using dd command

Installing Software by Other Methods

 

Deb packages

Other install methods

Links and Guides

DebCreator

CheckInstall

Introduction

This is the beginning of an How-to to enable existing users of Linspire 4.5 and Linspire 5.0 to continue to manage their systems with alternative tools to the now defunct CNR Warehouse. See the related thread at Freespire Forums here.

____________________________________________________________________________________

My last post there : -- 

Tue Apr 1 10:30 am 2008 [NZDT]

So where does this leave those of us who still want to continue running Linspire 5.0 or earlier versions?

My take, so far, is that we are entirely on our own and Linspire.com don't want to know about us. That said, there should be no problem just keeping the systems running. There have been no updates for quite a while any way and our systems will definitely not be 'targeted' by the black-hats!

For insurance purposes only, we already have a motley collection of .cnr files which can potentially be converted back to .deb files which can then be installed/re-installed using normal Linux tools without the need for authentificiation by the now-defunct CNR Warehouse.

There is a core group of us who, between us, probably have most of the skills to make this project work. If needed we can probably co-opt someone with the missing pieces of the jigsaw skills-wise.

I have started a simple Wiki page on my free Wiki account and can make this a collaborative project if this would help. It might be a bit easier to put it all together in that form than as posts to this forum.

Some have offered to host any 'repositories' that we develop and that could take the form of a normal Debian repository with just an indexed list of .deb files that can be accessed. I'm not really familiar with this but between us something should be possible. Then perhaps pointing Synaptic at this might be all it takes to be able to manage our systems.

One way of carrying these systems forward might be to compile from source some of the more recent applications and make them available as .deb files. From what I have read this is not a very difficult task and anyone could contribute with someone responsible for testing before release just like a real Debian distro!

I have been involved at the Klikit-Linux project for some time and have been using a beta version as my main OS for a while. I have found it really stable and easy to manage. One thing that is in the vision for Klikit-Linux is a one-click Storehouse where users can find and install new software. I know next to nothing about how this will be achieved but it may be possible to adapted it to the needs of Legacy Linspire. I will find out if it can.

 Source

Here is a link to the source code for Linspire

ftp://public.linspire.com/../dcc/pool/main/

This is dated 27/07/06 00:00:00

Also on the same site : --

Index of ftp://public.linspire.com/

ftp://public.linspire.com/

Up to higher level directory
dcc		27/07/06	00:00:00
dccri		27/07/06	00:00:00
freespire-OSS		07/08/06	00:00:00
freespire-source		10/08/07	00:00:00
freespire-stable		30/11/07	19:48:00
freespire-testing		12/10/07	18:50:00
linspire-4.x-source		27/07/06	00:00:00
linspire-5.x-source		27/07/06	00:00:00
linspire-6.x-source		30/11/07	22:02:00

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 Completed downloading Source for Linspire 4.5.      1175 files, 1.2 GB of data.

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 Completed downloading Source for Linspire 5.0.59, two ISO files,

/mnt/linspire_full_5.0.59_src_1-2/README

linspire_full_5.0.59_20050315-1613_src_1-2.iso

 

This is CD 1 of 2.

 

Together these CDs contain all of the publicly licensed source code used to create

Linspire 5.0.59 (full build), created 20050315-1613.

 

Each program or library is in the Debian source package format.

All packages are stored in a Debian source archive suitable for use with

'apt-get source'.

 

Synaptic

http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/index.html

Synaptic is a graphical package management program for apt. It provides the same features as the apt-get command line utility with a GUI front-end based on Gtk+.

Features

(as of version 0.56)

• Install, remove, upgrade and downgrade single and multiple packages.
• Upgrade your whole system.
• Manage package repositories (*.deb).
• Find packages by name, description and several other attributes.
• Select packages by status, section, name or a custom filter.
• Sort packages by name, status, size or version.
• Browse all available online documentation related to a package.
• Download the latest changelog of a package.
• Lock packages to the current version.
• Force the installation of a specifc package version.
• Undo/Redo of selections.
• Built-in terminal emulator for the package manager.
• Debian only: Configure packages through the debconf system.

Konsole

http://forum.freespire.org/showpost.php?p=101470&postcount=36

Re: Legacy CNR Client

Local Repositories

I have some CDs which I burned from my local repositories. List of contents posted : --

Repositories-2006-03-27.txt

          Repositories-2007-02-28.txt

Backup using dd command

See my documentation here.

Using the dd command from a Konsole window you can easily backup and compress an entire partition, including its MBR, into a file on another partition or drive. This file can be used to restore the working partition, as a bootable  partition or the installation can be cloned elsewhere into another partition that is not less than the original partition in size. Booting in the latter case would need to be fixed manually.

Installing Software by Other Methods

Again I am indebted to the Mepis manual for this information .

Deb packages

The software packages installed through Synaptic (and APT behind it) are in a format called deb (short for “Debian”, the Linux distribution that devised with APT). You can manually install deb packages using the graphical tool Kpackage or the command-line tool dpkg.

NOTE: It is also possible to carry out other Synaptic functions with these tools: consult the documentation listed below.

Installing .deb files with Kpackage

1. Double-click the deb package you want to install. Kpackage will open the install dialog. You can also click KMenu --> System --> More Applications --> Package Manager (Kpackage), and select the package manually.
2. Make sure Check Dependencies and Check Conflicts are both marked. By default in MEPIS Linux 7.0, the box Allow Downgrades is also checked, allowing APT to select a more compatible version of a package, if necessary. Click Install.
3. You will be prompted for your root password. Enter it to proceed.
4. Kpackage will attempt to install the package, posting the results in the right pane. If you see result=0 at the end, it means the install was successful.
5. If you receive errors indicating that the package could not install, consult the MEPIS community forums, or the MEPIS Wiki for more information (see Section 11).

Installing .deb files with dpkg

1. Open Konsole from KMenu --> System --> Terminal Program (Konsole). Become root using the su command and entering the root password when prompted.
2. Use the cd command to change to the directory containing your downloaded .deb file(s).

   NOTE:  dpkg is a LOCAL installer/de-installer package. It does not work over the internet like synaptic or kpackage or apt-get. Dpkg can only install a .deb that has already been downloaded to the system.

3. Install the package with the command:

   dpkg -i packagename.deb

   (substituting the real package name, of course). If you are installing multiple packages at the same time, you can do it at once using

   dpkg -i *.deb

   In a shell command, the asterisk is a wild card in the argument. In this case it will cause the program to apply the command to any file whose name ends with “.deb”.
4. If required dependencies are not installed on your system already, you will get unmet dependencies errors as dpkg does not automatically take care of them. To correct these errors and finish the installation, run

   apt-get -f install

   Apt-get will attempt to rectify the situation by either installing the needed dependencies (if they are available from the repositories), or removing your .deb files (if the dependencies cannot be installed).

Other install methods

Sooner or later some software that you want to install will not be available in the repositories and you may need to use other installation methods. These methods include:

• RPM packages: Some distributions of Linux use the RPM packaging system (short for RedHat Package Manager, developed by RedHat Linux. RPM packages are similar to deb packages in many ways, and there is a command-line program available from MEPIS Linux to convert RPM packages to debs called alien. Alien does not come installed with MEPIS Linux 7.0, but is available from the default repositories.

  After you have installed alien on your system, you can use it to install an rpm package with this command (as root):

  alien -i packagename.rpm

  For more detailed information on alien, see the internet version of its man page in the Links and Guides section at the bottom of this page.
• Source code: Any open-source program can be compiled from the programmer's original source code if there is no other option. In ideal circumstances, this is actually a pretty simple operation, but sometimes you can run into errors that require a little more skill to sort through. Source is usually distributed as a tarball (tar.gz or tar.bz2 file). See the Links and Guides section for a tutorial on compiling programs.
• Miscellaneous: Many software developers package software in their own custom ways, usually distributed as tarballs or zip files. They may contain setup scripts, ready-to-run binaries, or binariy installer programs similar to Windows “setup.exe” programs. In Linux, such programs often end in “.bin”. GoogleEarth, for example, is often distributed this way. When in doubt, consult the installation instructions provided with the software. If you have to compile a package, consult the MEPIS Wiki article below.

Links and Guides

• MEPIS Wiki: Installing Software: http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Installing_Software
• MEPIS Wiki: Compiling: http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Compiling.
• KPackage home page: http://docs.kde.org/en/3.3/kdeadmin/kpackage/
• The Debian package management tools: http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkgtools.en.html
• Debian APT guide: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/
• Alien man page: http://linux.die.net/man/1/alien

New,  Sun, 11 May 2008

DebCreator

 See forum thread at Klikit-Linux,here

DebCreator is a GUI tool to assist in the building of .deb files from source. Could assist with this project..

CheckInstall

Here is another application worth knowing about, when installing from source : --

http://www.asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/

This tool allows you to compile once and install in many computers. It's not a GUI but has one feature that may be invaluable; it monitors installations and allows them to be uninstalled later.