Two KNOPPIXs installed-copy from one to the other?

[alex+]

I have two KNOPPIXs installed each on its own hard drive. I recently installed Mozilla-Firefox on one of them using apt-get install and I would like to know how to duplicate only the Firefox installation by copying from one drive to the other.
I can easily access the other KNOPPIX, either way.

[Markus]

If you haven't cleaned up /var/cache/apt/archives you'll find the mozilla-firefox.something.deb there. If you copy the file over you should be able to install with "dpkg -i mozilla-firefox.something.deb". Should, while it might want a update upgrade first.

[alex+]

There must be more to it than just doing the dpkg because it didn't work for me.
How about dependencies? Does dpkg take care of them?

[Markus]

I haven't installed firefox myself, but if it wanted any extra packages you should include them as well. dpkg should take care of the dependencies, but firefox depends on quite a few packages that might need to be upgraded. Did you get any error message?

Just out of interest, are you on a modem or why don't you just apt-get install?

[alex+]

I'm on a modem so prefer to avoid redownloading.

Perhaps this has something to do with 'dpkg -i mozilla-firefox' not working but there's something else in my /var/cache/apt/archive/':

libidl0_0.7.4.3_i386.deb

I remember seeing this during the apt-get install mozilla-firefox operation.
Perhaps it has to be included somehow?

[Markus]

You could do a "apt-get -s install mozilla-firefox" to see if it wants any extra packages.
If they are small in size and you can't find them in the other partition's archive I think you'll have to download at least them.
If you know something has to be included, just include it in the same dpkg command after mozilla.

[Stephen]

I'm on a modem so prefer to avoid redownloading.

If you have a network with the machines then you may want to look at the apt-proxy package to share the sources from one machine to the others also I believe that squid will do similar and speed up your connection to the internet as well by caching many of the files that have to be downloaded along with blocking all the junk if you want.

[alex+]

Earlier, you asked for the error message that I got when I ran dpkg -i mozilla-firefox.

I copied /var/cache/apt/archives/* from the source KNOPPIX to the destination KNOPPIX then ran dpkg-i mozilla-firefox* in the destination KNOPPIX. At first, it appeared to be working but then this error notice came up:
---
lock mozilla-firefox_0.8-5.backports.org.1_i386.deb partial/
root knx:/var/cache/apt/archives# dpkg -i mozilla*
Selecting previously deselected package mozilla-firefox.
(Reading database ... 101388 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mozilla-firefox (from mozilla-firefox_0.8-5.backports.org.1_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mozilla-firefox:
mozilla-firefox depends on libidl0 (>= 0.7.4); however:
Package libidl0 is not installed. <--(see ^* below)
dpkg: error processing mozilla-firefox (--install):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
mozilla-firefox
root knx:/var/cache/apt/archives# firefox
selected locale: en-US
root knx:/var/cache/apt/archives#
-----------
^* here's what's in my /var/cache/apt/archives/:
./ .//
libidl0_0.7.4.3_i386.deb
mozilla-firefox_0.8-5.backports.org.1_i386.deb
lock partial/

According to the error message, libidl0 doesn't install.
I tried running dpkg -i on it as I did with mozilla-firefox but it didn't help.

This is getting to be a major project so perhaps it would be better to just
download firefox directly to this second KNOPPIX instead of trying to copy it..

Thanks for your patient assist. I'll use your dpkg info on the next copy attempt.