Portable version for Ubuntu

[cydone]

Hello,

I would like to install FreeCAD-software ( 0.16 ) but I have NO internet connexion available on my computer ( linux ubuntu 16.04 xenial - x 64 bits).

So I would like to download from internet ON a USB-key the FreeCAD-Software and all the dependencies ( package for Ubuntu 16.04 ).

Can I find anywhere a portable version of FreeCAD for Ubuntu ? A link ?

Thanks,

[r-frank]

Hello.

Have you tried looking into the correct package and download the package files manually transferring them per usb-stick to your offline computer ?

Roland

[NormandC]

Have you tried looking into the correct package and download the package files manually transferring them per usb-stick to your offline computer ?

Roland, on Ubuntu (or any Linux distro) FreeCAD has a massive list of cascading dependencies (dependencies of dependencies of dependencies), for a simple program with few dependencies it can be done but for FreeCAD it would be a nightmare. What you see on the Launchpad PPA is only a fraction of the packages needed by FreeCAD, the rest is downloaded from the Ubuntu servers at install.

cydone, the computer with Internet access you plan on downloading from, is it a PC running Windows or Ubuntu? Can you use a liveUSB key to run Ubuntu on that machine? (For that you need access to the BIOS and change the boot device sequence)

[r-frank]

Thanks for reminding me Normand, i really forgot about the dependecies.
Well, on Windows you could make a completely portable app with cameyo.
On Linux creating an appimage seems to an alternative ?

Roland

[NormandC]

On Linux creating an appimage seems to an alternative ?

This was discussed some time ago in the Open Discussion forum, there are now two alternatives to AppImage. Until someone volunteers to take charge of such a project, it will remain in the useless discussion area.

vejmarie made a snap package (new Ubuntu version of a self-contained package) of FreeCAD, but it's of the 0.17 development version. I have no idea if snap packages can be downloaded for an offline PC. In any case I don't recommend 0.17 to beginners.

Would a moderator kindly split this discussion starting with cydone's post into a separate topic? I suggest the title "How to install FreeCAD 0.16 on offline PC (Ubuntu 16.04)?"

[NormandC]

I've been trying to get a full list of dependencies and downloaded them, then installed FreeCAD 0.16.6703 that way on a laptop running Ubuntu 16.04 64-Bit. Unfortunately I still missed 6 packages it seems. I'm up to 56 packages so far.

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apt-source depends freecad

gives the list, but it must be formatted afterwards. Then it needs to be done for freecad-doc, graphviz, calculix-ccx.

After that:

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apt-get download <list of packages>

Yep, a snap package of 0.16.6703 would be very useful.

Must go for now...

[sgrogan]

I've been trying to get a full list of dependencies and downloaded them, then installed FreeCAD 0.16.6703 that way on a laptop running Ubuntu 16.04 64-Bit. Unfortunately I still missed 6 packages it seems. I'm up to 56 packages so far.

Wow! Surprised your so close
Does

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apt-source depends freecad

get the runtime only dependencies(ie runtimes that don't depend on buildtime)
http://askubuntu.com/questions/212027/g ... by-default
How did you determine 6 packages were missing.

[NormandC]

Does

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apt-source depends freecad

get the runtime only dependencies(ie runtimes that don't depend on buildtime)

I'm not sure I understand the question, and I confess I'm fuzzy on what a runtime is (typical Windows expression I'll bet ). Your link does not mention this "buildtime" you talk about. And that link is for getting build dependencies which is a different thing. Or is that what you mean by buildtime?

Build dependencies are only required to build/compile the software/package, the debian packaging process generates a set of dependencies needed by the package to function. They are not the same, and they're what's listed by the above command.

How did you determine 6 packages were missing.

The terminal told me. Once I downloaded the packages into a folder, I navigated to the folder in the terminal and installed them all with

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sudo dpkg -i *.deb

I don't like using dpkg because it's a low-level tool which I'm not very used to. But AFAIK it's the only way to install a bunch of local .debs.

The output I got was similar to this for a few packages (my system is French so I translated the comments below as I best could):

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dpkg: error processing package libatlas3-base (--install) :
 dependency problems - left unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libopenblas-base :
 libopenblas-base depends on libblas-common ; however :
  Package libblas-common is not installed.

At the end I got

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Errors were encountered while processing :
 libatlas3-base
 libopenblas-base
 libspooles2.2:amd64
 python-pivy
 python-pyside.qtsvg
 python-pyside.qtuitools
 calculix-ccx
 freecad
 libarpack2
 liblapack3

Then I did

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sudo apt-get upgrade

And the output told me what were the missing dependencies.

But when I did

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sudo apt-get -f install

As the terminal suggested, it installed 15 new packages rather than 6! Bringing up the total to 71 packages.

So it looks like the apt-source depends command does not supply a real complete list of dependencies. But I have to add that of those I got, I removed a few packages that I knew were system libraries installed by default, like lbc6.

Oh, and apt-source is not recognized on my Ubuntu 14.04 system. It seems it's a tool that was added to the apt package later.

[NormandC]

Anyway, I believe I've got the whole list of packages necessary to install FreeCAD 0.16.6703 for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-Bit on a PC without an Internet connection. (It's a 174MB download by the way)

My idea was to make an archive and share it on my Dropbox account. But I'm a little concerned about doing it, I feel that for people not used to the terminal there's a potential to break things that way...

EDIT: hey, just looked at Synaptic package manager, and it's possible to install a bunch of packages from a folder. IMO this is more user-friendly than the terminal command. Stay tuned, cydone.

[sgrogan]

I'm not sure I understand the question, and I confess I'm fuzzy on what a runtime is (typical Windows expression I'll bet ). Your link does not mention this "buildtime" you talk about. And that link is for getting build dependencies which is a different thing. Or is that what you mean by buildtime?

Yea, always trying to translate in my head. I'm like a baby, kinda understand linux, kinda can speak windows. I can't find the right reference to make me understand (I have been reading the debian documentation) dpkg or apt must get the information somewhere. In the debian control file we have the Build-Depends: and the Depends: The build depends are the dev packages that are necessary to compile but they pull in the runtime dependencies for that package, the .so files on linux (.dll files in my windows mind). The depends pulls in the .so files necessary at runtime but not compile time. When a user installs the binary package the package manager is smart enough to know that the full -dev package is not required.

I don't like using dpkg because it's a low-level tool which I'm not very used to. But AFAIK it's the only way to install a bunch of local .debs.

I don't like running commands I don't fully understand either, but I guess that's how we learn. Not very comfortable though.