Make sure you have the rpm packages apt, and it's dependend packages (perl-)XML-LibXML, (perl-)XML-LibXML-Common, (perl-)XML-NamespaceSupport, (perl-)XML-SAX. Depending on the package distributor you may need apt-server. If you do not have these packages you can download them from the download page of the apt4rpm website or just create them by using the .spec files (see the comments at the top of the .spec files for more information).
rpmbuild -ba apt.spec
rpm -Uvh apt apt-libs apt-server apt4rpm
(short form here - use the created filenames with version number). Repeat the same command sequence for the XML perl modules, if needed.
Change the configuration file aptate.conf to your needs. It can be stored in the directories: /etc/apt/ or $HOME/.aptate/.
Aptate.conf, or any other name in which case the argument --config-file must be used, holds the configuration information needed to run aptate. The configuration file is xml formatted and it follows the rules layed down in file aptate.dtd. The information ranges from defining the top directory up to describing a linux distribution.
The configuration file defines a list of sources where RPM packages can be found. Currently only local directories and FTP servers can be used. Two example configuration files, Example 1 and Example 2 are included in this manual,
If you configured everything to your needs you can start creating the needed databases by running aptate. Quite some effort have been spend to add error messages - so you should get hints if something goes wrong. Aptate will also create example configuration files for the client machine (sources.list and vendors.list) that need to be copied to the clients config directory /etc/apt/. Example 3 shows a sources.list file and an example of the vendors.list file is shown in Example 4.
The Client requires the package apt and depending on the distributor apt-libs as well.
Get the configuration files (sources.list and eventually vendors.list) and install them in /etc/apt. If you want to use authentication with apt - make sure you have all needed GPG/PGP keys installed on the server/client.
To check if your setup is correct, try: apt-get update
This will copy the databases to your local harddisk (if everything is ok) or complain (mainly if sources.list is not correct).
You should check your currently installed packages status with: apt-get check
This will make sure that you have no unresolved dependencies between installed packages. If it complains, that this is not the case try: apt-get -f install
which will install all packages, that are needed by already installed packages.
If all this went ok, try: apt-get -s upgrade
to see if there are any new packages available. The -s argument tells apt-get to simulate the command (nothing will be installed).
There is a second mode for upgrade called dist-upgrade In contrast to upgrade this will also install newer packages that require the removal or installation of extra packages.
There is much to tell about apt, how it can be used and how apt can be tuned according your desires. However, this is beyond the scope of this manual. At the apt4rpm website a link called related matrial can be found. The page behind that link holds many references to apt howto's, manuals, etc. This page is worth to be visited, especially when you're having questions, are stuck and the like! Or start reading the apt man pages (man apt-get or apropos apt).