Install applications from Live CD

To install applications from another computer without using an internet connection, sneak peek here.

I’ve been using Ubuntu as well as Kubuntu for quite some time now. The debate about using GNOME or KDE is a never ending one. Both the desktops have some pros and cons. GNOME gives you a super look with beautiful effects but KDE has the best set of applications. My choice is to use GNOME along with some KDE applications.

Synaptic Manager allows one to easily install KDE applications too. Applications like Amarok and k3b easily integrate into the GNOME desktop. Thanks to my very pathetic internet connection, I had to request cds for Ubuntu as well as Kubuntu.

I recently installed the new version Hardy Heron 8.04 and wanted to install my favourite KDE applications on it (especially Amarok and k3b). It’s really not worth installing the complete Kubuntu system just for using a few applications. Or downloading them if you allready So, I played around with the system a bit, and came up with a solution which I would like to share with all. I installed applications from the Kubuntu Live CD onto my GNOME Desktop. And they Worked!

Let’s see how to go about it. Do read the site disclaimer before going ahead.

Firstly, go through this post for mounting the File System in a folder.

Note that we’ll need to have administrator privileges for this hack, so it’s better to open the folder in file manager as root.

$ gksudo nautilus/home

One needs to select the applications to be installed from this folder ’sfsmount’. A complete list of the packages can be found in the folder ’sfsmount/var/lib/dpkg/info’. Open this folder using the following command. Being root, we’ll have to navigate to the ‘/home/username/sfsmount/var/lib/dpkg/info’. Choose the packages to be installed and open the .list files in a text editor (gedit or kate).

The .list file contains a list of files and directories associated with the application. For Amarok, it looks somewhat like this:

/. /usr /usr/share /usr/share/doc /usr/share/doc/k3b /usr/share/doc/k3b/FAQ … … /usr/share/doc/k3b/TODO /usr/share/doc/k3b/AUTHORS /usr/share/doc/k3b/changelog.Debian.gz /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML/en/k3b/common

This means that for the Amarok to be installed the above list of files should be present in the user session. Simply copy the files from the directory ’sfsmount’ to the present filesystem. After copying all the files, type in the command for the application. (eg. for Amarok)

$ amarok

Amarok will initialise and can be used just as any other installed application! There is also a shortcut at Applications >> Sound & Video >> Amarok.

Thus we’ve successsfully installed an application from a Live CD onto the Linux environment.

This hack is also very useful for people with no internet connection. One can also upgrade the applications in the same way. Although, I’ve tried this on GNOME, I’m sure the same is possible on any version of Linux.

PS: I’ve tested Amarok and k3b. If anyone installs any other applications do let me know by commenting on this post. Also please inform if you encounter any errors in the operation.

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