R SIG Debian - Feb 2019 - Local repo for ubuntu including R

Background:

We have a computer lab with two ubuntu 18.04 machines (and lots of 
windows computers) and I am searching for a convenient way to keep the 
machines up-to-date regarding R in the first place, but also ubuntu 
itself. The problem is that the lab is isolated from the internet.

Some versions of ubuntu ago I had success with apt-mirror and apt-get 
for the OS, but now I cannot get it to work. In my search for help on 
the internet I have come to the conclusion that there is something wrong 
with apt-mirror nowadays.

Question:

What is the best and simplest way to keep the ubuntu machines up-to-date 
regarding OS and R with the apt/apt-get approach?  Alternatives to 
apt-mirror?

Thanks, G?ran

My simple solution was to download the content of

ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/CRAN/bin/linux/ubuntu/bionic-cran35/

to an usb stick and mount it on the lab machine and configure

/etc/apt/sources.list

accordingly. The problem with apt-mirror was that not all relevant files 
were downloaded, e.g. InRelease and Packages.lzma (used for what?), 
resulting in cryptic errors and error messages when running

apt update

Simple is best, G?ran


On 2019-02-05 16:05, G?ran Brostr?m wrote:
> Background:
> 
> We have a computer lab with two ubuntu 18.04 machines (and lots of 
> windows computers) and I am searching for a convenient way to keep the 
> machines up-to-date regarding R in the first place, but also ubuntu 
> itself. The problem is that the lab is isolated from the internet.
> 
> Some versions of ubuntu ago I had success with apt-mirror and apt-get 
> for the OS, but now I cannot get it to work. In my search for help on 
> the internet I have come to the conclusion that there is something wrong 
> with apt-mirror nowadays.
> 
> Question:
> 
> What is the best and simplest way to keep the ubuntu machines up-to-date 
> regarding OS and R with the apt/apt-get approach?? Alternatives to 
> apt-mirror?
> 
> Thanks, G?ran
> 
> _______________________________________________
> R-SIG-Debian mailing list
> R-SIG-Debian at r-project.org
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-debian

On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 at 11:05, G?ran Brostr?m <goran.brostrom at umu.se>
wrote:
> Background:
>
> We have a computer lab with two ubuntu 18.04 machines (and lots of
> windows computers) and I am searching for a convenient way to keep the
> machines up-to-date regarding R in the first place, but also ubuntu
> itself. The problem is that the lab is isolated from the internet.
>
> Some versions of ubuntu ago I had success with apt-mirror and apt-get
> for the OS, but now I cannot get it to work. In my search for help on
> the internet I have come to the conclusion that there is something wrong
> with apt-mirror nowadays.
>
Yours is a common use-case, but "I cannot get it to work" doesn't
help
anyone understand what is broken.  Since apt-cache is available as
an 18.04 package, you should report the bug to Ubuntu maintainers.

> Question:
>
> What is the best and simplest way to keep the ubuntu machines up-to-date
> regarding OS and R with the apt/apt-get approach?  Alternatives to
> apt-mirror?
>
> Thanks, G?ran
>
> _______________________________________________
> R-SIG-Debian mailing list
> R-SIG-Debian at r-project.org
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-debian
>

-- 
George N. White III

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Den 2019-02-19 kl. 22:43, skrev George N. White III:
> 
> 
> On Tue, 5 Feb 2019 at 11:05, G?ran Brostr?m <goran.brostrom at umu.se 
> <mailto:goran.brostrom at umu.se>> wrote:
> 
>     Background:
> 
>     We have a computer lab with two ubuntu 18.04 machines (and lots of
>     windows computers) and I am searching for a convenient way to keep the
>     machines up-to-date regarding R in the first place, but also ubuntu
>     itself. The problem is that the lab is isolated from the internet.
> 
>     Some versions of ubuntu ago I had success with apt-mirror and apt-get
>     for the OS, but now I cannot get it to work. In my search for help on
>     the internet I have come to the conclusion that there is something
>     wrong
>     with apt-mirror nowadays.
> 
> 
> Yours is a common use-case, but "I cannot get it to work"
doesn't help
> anyone understand what is broken.? Since apt-cache is available as
> an 18.04 package, you should report the bug to Ubuntu maintainers.
Thanks George. I asked for a simple way to keep R and packages 
up-to-date, and I answered my own question about two hours ago: Just 
download the bionic-cran35 files to an usb stick and move it to the lab. 
apt-mirror and others are just red herrings.

Best, G?ran
> 
> 
>     Question:
> 
>     What is the best and simplest way to keep the ubuntu machines
>     up-to-date
>     regarding OS and R with the apt/apt-get approach?? Alternatives to
>     apt-mirror?
> 
>     Thanks, G?ran
> 
>     _______________________________________________
>     R-SIG-Debian mailing list
>     R-SIG-Debian at r-project.org <mailto:R-SIG-Debian at
r-project.org>
>     https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-debian
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> George N. White III
>