Unofficial Debian packages

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Abstract

Read this if you need help finding .debs for software not available on the Debian mirrors.

1 Third party packages

Many unofficial .debs are available from http://apt-get.org/

2 Backports

Packages 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 backports

3.1 Using the commandline to install individual packages

Download the .deb file and install from the commandline using dpkg as user root.

$ 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 Synaptic

If you are using Synaptic in the X Window System, you must add the repository to /etc/apt/sources.list using

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 upgrade

If 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 Commandline

You 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 Synaptic

Remove 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 Multimedia

This 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 /etc/apt/sources.list. It is recommended that you also add the Debian Multimedia keyring to your system so that you can download and install packages, confident that they do not pose a security risk.

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 /etc/apt/sources.list as described above in .html#Adding a repository using Synaptic.

6 Appendix A: Licence

Copyright (c) 2006-2009 Chris Lale. chrislale AT users DOT berlios DOT de

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License."

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