This is a little trick I use to spin up the packages instalation on Debian/Ubuntu boxes in Vagrant.
I add a simple function that checks if a directory named something similar to ~/.vagrant.d/cache/apt/opscode-ubuntu-12.04/partial
(it may have another path in Windows or MacOS) and create the directory if it doesn't already exist.
def local_cache(box_name)
cache_dir = File.join(File.expand_path(Vagrant::Environment::DEFAULT_HOME),
'cache',
'apt',
box_name)