Grab all dependencies from apt-get for offline install (Ubuntu 11)

Question

How do I use apt-get to install a package on an offline computer? With a separate (connected) computer, I can use apt-get --download [package] to pull the package I'm interested in but this fails to grab the dependencies. Can I copy a list of the already installed packages from the offline computer to the online one so the dependencies can be calculated with apt-get?

If I want to install packages and update the computer - is there a better way to do than what's described above?

Answer 1

You can use tools like apt-cacher, apt-mirror or apt-offline (which sounds like it fits your requirements best).

apt-offline -

apt-offline is an Offline APT Package Manager

apt-offline can fully update and upgrade an APT based distribution without connecting to the network, all of it transparent to apt

apt-offline can be used to generate a signature on a machine (with no network). This signature contains all download information required for the apt database system. This signature file can be used on another machine connected to the internet (which need not be a Debian box and can even be running windows) to download the updates. The downloaded data will contain all updates in a format understood by apt and this data can be used by apt-offline to update the non-networked machine.