You didn’t mention which image your using. I had similar problems with the Buster image on a PocketBeagle. Apt-get wouldn’t work for me because there is no network connectivity to deb.debian.org or rcn-ee.com, the two repositories used on Buster.
A possible work-around, which you seem to hint at is creating your own repository on a local folder. I’m assuming you have the ability to download the needed packages and get them onto the BBB. Try this:
- Create a local repository folder; “sudo mkdir -p /opt/repo”
- Copy your packages to that folder.
- Create a Packages file; “sudo touch /opt/repo/Packages” and “sudo chown debian /opt/repo/Packages”.
- Write a list of your packages to Packages; “sudo dpkg-scanpackages -m . > /opt/repo/Packages”
- Lastly, create a sources list in /etc/apt/sources.list.d. Call it whatever you like as long as it has the .list file extension.
- In that file add; “deb [trusted=yes] file:/opt/repo” Or your can use a URI to that location if you want network access to your local repo.
This may not be a complete solution. While I have been able to get it to work for some packages, installing a package with a lot of dependencies is problematic. For instance “aptitude” eventually ran into a dependency for a newer version of libc6. Yes, you can install it from a local repo, but that will only hose your OS as just about everything else depends on libc6. I have not yet tried “dpkg-reconfigure libc6”, which was suggested on a recent Reddit post. YMMV.
–Cliff