Reduce the packages page to a release-asset reference, add arm64 and offline guidance

[GuanzhouSong]

Three changes to getting-started/prebuilt-packages.md, plus a link fix across four pages. main already documents v0.116-0 and the package layout (#67), so this builds on that.

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1. arm64 asset names, and why local installs need one command

The DEB and RPM asset examples were written for amd64 / x86_64 with no arm64 equivalent, even though v0.116-0 publishes both. The change adds the swap and records that only the gateway and extension assets are architecture-specific — the other four are _all.deb / noarch — so a reader knows which of the six names to change.

The stated cause of the meta-package failure was also wrong:

The packages depend on each other, so installing the meta package on its own fails

Mutual dependency is not the reason. apt and dnf resolve dependencies only from repository indexes, so a dependency on a bare local file is unresolvable regardless of how simple it is — a meta package with one dependency fails identically. Proven by putting the same six assets behind a local index, where a bare apt install documentdb resolves the whole graph at exit 0.

2. Offline / air-gapped

Release assets alone are not enough — DocumentDB also needs PostgreSQL, pg_cron, pgvector and PostGIS from PGDG. The page had no guidance for that case.

Since documentdb.io now carries the verified commands (documentdb/documentdb.github.io#158), this page keeps a pointer plus the one thing a reader cannot rediscover: apt-get install --download-only and a bare dnf download --resolve skip whatever is already installed on the staging machine, so the bundle looks complete and the target dies with Depends: adduser but it is not installable. One copy of the commands, not two.

3. Reduced to a release-asset reference

A clarity review found this file competing with documentdb.io rather than complementing it. That page is the canonical guide — repository setup, CRB, architecture, connect, network exposure, verify/operate, upgrade, extension-only hosts, troubleshooting — and this file renders there as a "this page has moved" stub, so it is read almost entirely by people browsing this repository. It duplicated most of that content, and 44% of the page came before the first install command.

Kept: release-asset filenames, the six-file install commands, SHA256SUMS, the package-set table, the build matrix, container tags, /version.txt. Everything else is now a link.

Also:

• The PGDG/EPEL/CRB prerequisite was printed after both install blocks it gates — a reader copy-pasted, failed, and only then met the fix. Moved above the commands.
• Merged Latest Release + What ships in a release + Package Matrix into one What each release publishes, below the install, since it is consulted rather than followed.
• Dropped the per-release changelog paragraph (duplicates the release notes, goes stale every release) and the version-grammar paragraph (the asset-name examples already demonstrate it).
• Dropped docker pull and docker tag — the tag it creates is never used again on the page, and docker run implies the pull. Two note blockquotes became one line.
• Switched the mongosh example to the credential-flag form, which needs no percent-encoding caveat.

1,565 → 878 words.

4. Four links pointed at the redirect stub

documentdb-local/index.md, kubernetes-operator/index.md, getting-started/index.md and getting-started/python-setup.md all linked to /docs/getting-started/prebuilt-packages/, which documentdb.io serves as a moved-notice stub — 440 characters of visible text against 20,563 on the page it points at. Repointed to /docs/getting-started/packages/.

Verification

The offline commands referenced here were run verbatim, staging on a connected container and installing into one started with --network none:

Path	Closure	Result
DEB — stage ubuntu:24.04 → offline ubuntu:24.04	205 pkgs / 203 MB	apt install documentdb-18 → exit 0
RPM — stage rockylinux:9 → offline rockylinux:9	271 pkgs / 172 MB	dnf install documentdb-18 → exit 0
Single file — offline host with PGDG present	1 file	apt install ./…deb → exit 0

The --download-only failure documented in the callout is the reproduced first attempt (133 packages staged instead of 205), not a hypothetical.

Asset architecture split confirmed against the real v0.116-0 assets: 4 × _all.deb plus gateway/extension × {amd64,arm64}, and the RPM set the same way with noarch. Container tags resolved by digest — latest and pg17-0.116.0 share sha256:bcdcca86…, and pg18-0.116.0 exists.

All five external links in the rewritten page return 200, including the documentdb.io offline anchor #offline-air-gapped-install — note the site slugifies with change-case's kebabCase, giving a single hyphen where GitHub's own slugifier gives a double.

No shell command was altered.

Related

documentdb/documentdb.github.io#158 — the canonical page: same ARM fix, the full offline section, and a 42% restructure.