Saving the installation locally for offline use on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Saving the installation locally for offline use on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Hello everyone, I’m currently relocating and my internet isn’t working at the new location. My PC already has a WiFi card that I can use with my phone’s hotspot until the router is fixed. The issue is I don’t have the right drivers installed, and without them I can’t download the apt package via terminal (I’m using Ubuntu 20.04 LTS). I need to get the drivers from another PC with internet access, save the files on a USB drive, and then transfer it to my home PC for installation. Since I also have Ubuntu installed on my work machine, I could download everything there and move the needed files to my USB drive as well. The package I’m trying to install is broadcom-sta-dkms, a proprietary driver for Broadcom wireless adapters that should work with my BCM4352 AC card. In the GUI, I can’t see any option to connect to networks because the driver isn’t installed. I’ve noticed apt archives are stored in var/cache/apt/archives, but that folder doesn’t appear on my work PC even when showing hidden files. I’m also unsure if this package has extra dependencies I need to download, so I’d like a smooth, completely offline installation at home. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
You can simply transfer the .deb file to your USB drive and plug it in. Once back home, navigate to the folder and run dpkg -i to install it. This package seems standalone, so no additional dependencies are required beyond what’s listed.
Current approach, if you want to verify the process: copy the .deb file from source to USB, move it to your home PC’s local folder, then navigate into that directory and run the commands in order. After that, install with sudo and check for any dependency fixes using dpkg. This should help ensure the WiFi card driver works properly without internet access.
Ensure dynamic module loading is activated in your kernel, which is typically the standard setting.
When stuck, simply link your phone to your computer using a USB cable, navigate to notifications on your phone, and switch the USB setting from the standard mode to "USB Teeth." This should generate a temporary internet connection for installing drivers and help bypass downloading packages directly.
Really, dkms comes with many dependencies, and trying to install them without internet has consistently been out of reach for me, especially on distributions that don’t include it by default—like Fedora (though I’m not sure about Ubuntu).
You're attempting to set up dpkg on Fedora? That's unusual since dpkg is specific to Debian-based systems. It manages Debian-style packages, but Fedora uses its own package manager, RPM. The issue arises because Fedora doesn't support Debian packages, making it hard to resolve dependencies. Fedora includes its own version of dpkg in the long-term release, known as rpm. Also, the person asking might be trying to install a Debian package from another machine, not dpkg itself.
I would handle this automatically, but my device is tied to a service that blocks USB connections even with a hotspot. If I had to bypass it on Linux, I’d need to jailbreak the phone to enable USB tethering.
You could set up a local repo and stick with apt-get, but using dpkg in the terminal is simpler for just one .deb package. It should work fine.