Can any one suggest a sane way to do this, obviously some munging of 02packages.details.txt is required.
Based on that comment, I hacked out an 85-line program for my next LM column that does just that. It fetches everything you'd need to install any module in the modules list using CPAN.pm, and deletes anything old.
The current "mini-CPAN" size is just a bit under 300M. Easily fit on a CDROM. Cool.
The first time you run it, it sequentially fetches all of the modules, which is nicer on the source machine than doing them in parallel. After that, it fetches just what might have changed.
-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
update: I posted this at
Mirror only the installable parts of CPAN.