file> is the file name of the .deb file containing the package and must contain an

adequate path to the file. So if you are currently in the directory /usr/debian

and the archives are in /usr/debian/stable, you can either type:

dpkg  i ./stable/binary i386/admin/cron 3.0pl1 38.deb

or:

dpkg  i /usr/debian/stable/binary i386/admin/cron 3.0pl1 38.deb

with the same results. Either of the above lines will install the cron package

on your system from the given location.

This is fine for installing packages one at a time, but an installation of all of

the packages in a given directory tree is possible with the use of the  R option.

This option causes dpkg to attempt installation of every .deb file that it finds

while doing a recursive search of the declared directory tree.

So, if you wanted to install the entire admin directory as given in the above

example the command would look like:

dpkg  i  R /usr/debian/stable/binary i386/admin

Because of dependencies between packages this approach will not always (or

even very often) be successful. It is very useful if you have a nonstandard

archive that contains all the packages you wish to install and all of their de 

pendent packages as well. Constructing such archives using FTP to download

only those packages that you need will create archives that dpkg can install as a

group. If the packages are all found in the directory /usr/local/Debian/archive,