[wellylug] updating vs bandwidth

[Richard Hector]

On Sat, 2010-03-06 at 19:12 +1300, Jeff Hunt wrote:

> 2. When one machine is updated copy the update debs off of
> /var/cache/apt/archives and transfer them to the same directory in
> other machine. Then do a standard update (I use update manager) and
> there will be zero donwloads. Apt will find the debs already present
> and behave correctly. Apt-get clean will empty the cache after the
> updating if you wish.

Of course, if you mount /var/cache/apt/archives from a usb stick or
external hdd in the first place, you can just move it from one machine
to the other. Just make sure you don't do an update on the machine that
doesn't have it :-)

Or you could NFS mount it from one to the other - I would still avoid
trying to upgrade both at the same time, though :-)

I don't see a problem with using that method for a dist-upgrade, either,
as long as you have enough space. The file naming conventions are good
enough not to get packages confused. Well, maybe not if you're on
different architectures, but then you wouldn't get much benefit anyway.

Richard