Manually download packages

Question

I have a computer without access to the internet with arch linux installed, I would like to install some packages on it to watch DVDs, I know what packages I need, i just do not know how to download them. This must be really easy and I am searching for the wrong thing. Please help!

Answer 1

@Ghost1227
That wouldn't resolve dependencies.
@quizzelsnatch
You can add "--print-uris" or "-p" when calling pacman to get it to print the URIs for a sync operation. You could then just copy them and download them manually on another computer. Examples:
Get the URIs for a full system upgrade:
pacman -Sup
Get the URIs for pkg_a and pkg_b:
pacman -Sp pkg_a pkg_b
Keep in mind that you need to sync the database though to get the latest packages.
If you're downloading on another Arch computer, you can use the "--downloadonly" / "-w" and "--cachedir" options to download packages on that computer onto some external storage device:
pacman -Sw --cachedir /path/to/device pkg_a pkg_b
Once you have the packages, you can install them on the target computer with the "-upgrade"/"-U":
pacman -U /path/to/pkg_a_tarball /path/to/pkg_b_tarball
The tarball will be named pkg_a-ver-rel[.architecture].pkg.tar.gz
Keep in mind that you might run into problems with dependencies and compatibility if you're not keeping the target system up-to-date. There are ways to download the database on another computer and transfer it, but my post is long enough as is.
Finally, if you're going to be downloading lots of files, take a look at powerpill. You can use it to generate a metalink of all the downloads that you can use on another computer. Aside from being significantly faster for downloading, it also avoids problems if your main mirror fails (because the --print-uris option only spits out links for the top mirror in your list).