Unofficial Debian packages
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- Chris Lale
- chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de
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Revision History
Revision 1.0 | 19th January 2006 | Revised by Chris Lale | ||||||||||
Initial release. | ||||||||||||
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Revision 1.1 | 5th April 2007 | Revised by Chris Lale | ||||||||||
Added some new material about how to remove backports before a Debian upgrade. | ||||||||||||
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Revision 1.2 | 22nd November 2007 | Revised by Chris Lale | ||||||||||
Modified so that a stable version can be included in the "newbiedoc" package. | ||||||||||||
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Revision 1.3 | 26th September 2009 | Revised by Chris Lale | ||||||||||
Updated for Debian Squeeze. Added section on Debian Multimedia. | ||||||||||||
Read this if you need help finding .debs for software not available on the Debian mirrors.
1 Third party packagesMany unofficial .debs are available from http://apt-get.org/ 2 BackportsPackages in the Testing and Unstable distributions are often unavailable for the Stable distribution. You cannot install the Testing/Unstable packages because of dependency issues. Packages at http://www.backports.org/ are compiled against libraries in the Stable distribution. LAMP (Linux, Apache, Mysql, PHP) packages at http://dotdeb.org/ are compiled against libraries in the Stable distribution. 3 Installing third party packages and backports3.1 Using the commandline to install individual packagesDownload the .deb file and install from the commandline using $ su (enter root password) # dpkg -i name-of-package.deb # exit $ Uninstall using the -r switch to remove the package. $ su (enter root password) # dpkg -r name-of-package.deb # exit $ 3.2 Adding a repository using SynapticIf you are using Synaptic in the X Window System, you must add the repository to Settings -> Repositories Open the tab for Third-Party Software and click the Add button. Type or paste in (Ctrl-V) the appropriate line. For example, if you wished to backport Squeeze packages into Lenny from backports.org you would add the line deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free Click on the Add Source button and then Close 4 How to remove backports before Debian upgradeIf you are upgrading to a new version of Debian (eg Lenny -> Squeeze), you may wish to remove your backported packages first (since they cannot be upgraded). 4.1 CommandlineYou can identify backported packages and remove them before upgrading. To find all the currently installed ('~i) packages from backports.org ('~Obackports'), run this search: $ aptitude search '~i ~Obackports' Remove the backports. To find all the currently installed ('~i) packages not ('!') from debian.org ('~!Odebian'), run this search: $ aptitude search '~i !~Odebian' This will find all the unofficial packages on your system including locally installed packages. For more information see Aptitude's command line reference in the README at /usr/share/doc/aptitude/README. 4.2 SynapticRemove backports.org from sources.list. They should all show up as "Installed (local or obsolete)". You can do this within Synaptic: Settings -> Repositories Open the tab for Third-Party Software View the /etc/sources.list entries. Highlight the relevant entry, click the Remove button and Close Next, reload the package information. Edit -> Reload Package Information You have removed the repository, but the packages remain. Identify them and remove them. In the left-hand panel click on the "Status" button and choose "Installed (local or obsolete)" Status -> Installed (local or obsolete) Remove the packages. 5 Debian MultimediaThis repository is a must if you want to add functionality such as dealing with mp3 formats etc. There are instructions on the home page at http://debian-multimedia.org/. The best way to make use of the repository is to add it to your Download the debian-multimedia-keyring package from the loink on the home page at http://www.debian-multimedia.org/. For example, http://www.debian-multimedia.org/pool/main/d/debian-multimedia-keyring/debian-multimedia-keyring_2008.10.16_all.deb Then install it as root: $ su (enter root password) # dpkg -i debian-multimedia-keyring_2008.10.16_all.deb # exit $ Finally add deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org squeeze main to 6 Appendix A: LicenceCopyright (c) 2006-2009 Chris Lale. chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de
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