[Techtalk] package hell: Related .deb question

[Elwing]

On May 7, 2008, at 11:10 AM, Figaro wrote:

> I have a series of programs that occasionally need to be updated (cad
> and structural-sim softwares). Obviously they are locally installed,
> they are either .deb or .deb that I build from .rpm's using the alien
> program.
> What I would love to be able to do would be add them to the apt-cache
> list somehow for simple package update.
> At present I only know how to use dpkg -i /some/dir/my/ 
> super.i386.deb to
> install them. Which always wipes out the license files and often  
> causes
> much grief for me with the IT group and vendors to get new license  
> codes
>  (assuming one can convince both "IT" and the vendor my story is  
> valid).
> Anyway, does anyone here have an idea how to easily do this?
> Thank you,
> matthew


You can use a local repository (http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/repository-howto/repository-howto 
) , but I believe (and I may be wrong) that ultimately, apt-get still  
runs dpkg -i and you may still lose your information.  I'm not sure  
how apt treats configuration information on local repositories.

Elwing