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Good evening everybody!

The "setup":

My "online PC":

Running Win10, I don't want to bother with installing another OS on that machine.

My "offline PC":

Running ubuntu 15.04 32bit. It has never been connected to the internet and I want to keep it that way.

The problem / question

I want to download software on my online windows PC, transfer it to the offline ubuntu PC (with a USB-drive or whatever) and then install it there.

I have only found tutorials and infos for running two ubuntu PCs and "exchanging" software between them, but not really anything for downloading stuff on a windows machine and then installing it on a ubuntu machine. And like I said, I don't want to set up a second OS on that "online PC". So, is there a (noob-friendly) way to do this? (I have almost 0 experience with ubuntu or linux in general, I know that you can use "get-apt" to install software on ubuntu if an internet connection is available, or something like that)

Why?

I only have one PC (a laptop actually) that is connected to the internet, all my other devices are offline, for privacy / security reasons. (I know, I am a bit paranoid, and yes, I know that beeing paranoid and running Win10 is a bit of a contradiction)

OfflineGuy
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    In Windows, that's much easier - you just download the .exe and you're good. In Linux, it's quite a bit more difficult. You need to download the .deb (or whatnot) plus you need to download the dependencies. You can do it, it's easy to find out the dependencies. However, 15.04 is out of support and it'll be more difficult to get the dependencies PLUS your question is going to be closed because this site is only for *supported* versions of Ubuntu and official Ubuntu flavors. – KGIII Dec 24 '20 at 23:11
  • "Running ubuntu 15.04 32bit." makes this out of scope of askubuntu. You need to reinstall from a new live session. That though you can do from windows. And I would suggest to re-examine your idea about security: Ubuntu is absolutely unequivocally without a shadow of doubt proven to be more secure than any window ever was. And if you want good basic security: use a router in between all your machines and the internet. That way you can connect all systems with eachother(!) without the need to have them connect to the internet and you can connect them when -you- want. – Rinzwind Dec 24 '20 at 23:11
  • @KGIII He can download the ISO and burn it on windows and use the ISO to install Ubuntu. – Rinzwind Dec 24 '20 at 23:12
  • @Rinzwind I think you may have misread my response. He wants to install *software*, not a new updated version. I responded to that. I also told them that they will need to update to get support. Please read my response anew. – KGIII Dec 24 '20 at 23:13
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    @KGIII I did not misread. He needs to update to 20.04 or 20.10. There are NO updates and there is no software available to install for 15.04. – Rinzwind Dec 24 '20 at 23:15
  • There is indeed software he *could* install - he just shouldn't. I addressed that in my post. He certainly could download .deb and dependencies from various places across the 'net - he just shouldn't. – KGIII Dec 24 '20 at 23:18
  • Just download what you want (`wget`), copy to thumb-drive (`cp`) and install (`dpkg -i` or `apt`) which is what `apt install` does anyway.. you've just got to manually download the files as `apt` (esp. `apt-get`) can't do it itself.. you need to install all *deps* too at the same time, as `apt` (or `apt-get`) would normally go online for those.. Your're off-topic here as 15.04 is EOL & has no MiTM protection for its flaws – guiverc Dec 24 '20 at 23:38
  • Sorry, I didn't know that this isn't the "most recent" version ... I used the tool "Linux Live USB Creator" to make a bootable USB drive. And in the download list of availabel linux ubuntu versions, 15.04 was the top most entry, so I thought that that would be the "newest" and "most recent" version. Sorry, I am new to this whole ubuntu thing ... – OfflineGuy Dec 25 '20 at 00:13
  • And for "just use a router": I trust a disconnected cable much more then a disabled setting in software. I have never seen a cable plug itself it, but I have seen settings in software change "by themself" lots of times (especially privacy settings, I am looking at you windows!) – OfflineGuy Dec 25 '20 at 00:40

1 Answers1

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This will depend greatly on how the software is distributed. If it’s a .deb file, then you have a couple of options:

  1. Using a GUI, right-click on the .deb file
  2. Choose “Package Menu”⇢“Install Package” (it might be named something slightly different. I don’t have a 15.04 installation anywhere to confirm with)

If you prefer to use the terminal, then:

sudo dpkg -i whatever.deb

You will want to have the installation media for Ubuntu nearby in the even there are unmet dependencies, as many of the core packages can be found on there.

The other option would be to compile the application from source. Generally the process goes:

  1. Download a file with a .tar.gz or .tar.bz2 extension
  2. Decompress it
  3. Check for dependencies with ./configure
  4. Compile with make
  5. Install with make install

Hopefully this will give you what you need.

  • Ok, that doesn't sound too different then windows. But the what if the software doesn't come as a .deb file? – OfflineGuy Dec 25 '20 at 00:10
  • Then you compile from source –  Dec 25 '20 at 00:11
  • I am talking about something like the linux version of this: [link](https://github.com/Jermolene/TiddlyDesktop/releases) – OfflineGuy Dec 25 '20 at 00:17
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    A Node-based application? Oh my … that’s going to be “dependency hell” and a whole lot of back and forth between computers for the sale of 1KB files. I’ve never attempted to build anything related to Node without an active internet connection –  Dec 25 '20 at 01:16
  • Ok, well that is bad .... I just set up the OS on that PC and there is no actual data on there yet, so I might connect it to the internet, download everything I might possibly need and then disconnect it forever. That might be the best solution in this case ... – OfflineGuy Dec 25 '20 at 11:23