The one system that binds all software on a debian system together is its package management. A Debian system uses "packages" to keep track of the files installed on your system and generally makes a piece of software feel at home on your system. These packages can be installed or removed (unless, of course some other package requires it) at will. In fact, the majority of the Debian installation process is installing the most basic packages that allow Debian to function.

Debian package management consists of several layers. The lowest layers, most of which you won't want to touch, are made up of "dpkg" and associated programs. On top of those layers are "apt", "dselect" and the upcoming "aptitude" tools. These tools work with DebianPackage files.

All of those tools are documented by a ManPage, so if you have questions, you should consult them (eg. 'man apt'). If you're new, there are some commands that have proven most useful for everyday use. Thes are grouped generally as:

Full-Screen Front-Ends

These are both console (ncurses) and GUI based. There are a number of alternatives, similar in regards, different in others. For users of ?RpmBasedLinuxDistros, analogs include ?RedCarpet and ?Up2Date.

Command-line Front-Ends

Generally, tools which integrate a number of operations (package list management, package retrieval, package installation, package configuration) in a single command. The primary command is apt-get, which has a number of useful invocations.

"Apt Help":http://www.spack.org/wiki/UsingApt

You can also use Wajig, for an unified and more logical command-line interface to all package management functions.

Low-level Tools

Largely dpkg and friends, these are commands that perform a single task. They are most directly comparable to Redhat's "rpm" command.

Contents of a debian file

To get the contents of the file "abc.deb", you have to enter

dpkg-deb -c abc.deb 

Reconfiguring of debconf

To reconfigure debconf, so that it informs you of most changes of the new packages, you have to enter

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure debconf

Chose "medium" here

Package Management with apt-get and dpkg

Package resource list for APT

The file /etc/apt/sources.list is the definition file of the sources for apt. For further information about this file type

man 5 sources.list

Retrieve new lists of packages:

To fetch the new lists of all the packages from sources.list enter as ?RootUser

sudo apt-get update

This command checks for new release-files on the given servers. Luckily the command is clever enough to check if the release-file has changed after the last update.

Upgrade of all the files:

To make an update of all the changed packages, enter the line

sudo apt-get upgrade -u

The additional flag -u shows a list of upgraded packages as well. If you want to run the update in a cron-job, you should use the flags -dy. With this flags the new packages will be downloaded but not installed. You can install them later by writing apt-get update -u.

Distribution Upgrade of all the files:

To make an upgrade of your actual distribution (e.g from potato to woody or when using unstable) replace upgrade with dist-upgrade when entering your command. So you have to type

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -dy

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -u

for an distribution upgrade.

Add a package:

How can you add a package to your system without the gui-programms? All you have to do is find out the name of this package and enter the command

sudo apt-get install sylpheed-claws

to add the package sylpheed-claws.

Remove a package:

To get rid of the package foo which is no longer needed, enter the command

sudo  apt-get remove foo

If the package is needed by other packages you will be prompted to remove this package and all packages which depend on it.

Forced removing of a package:

While making an distribution upgrade it could happen that you have to remove a package first. But sometimes this is not possible with apt-get remove since the package has unmet dependencies or is not installed completely. You can remove the package foo by using the command

sudo dpkg --force-all --remove foo 

Read the contents of a installed package:

Sometimes you want to know which files are in the package foo. To get this information enter the command

dpkg -L foo 

Get the description of a package:

You don't know what the package foo is for? Just write

dpkg -p foo 

Search the package of a file:

Have you ever wondered to which package belongs a given file? To get this information (e.g. for /usr/bin/apt-get), start the command

dpkg -S /usr/bin/apt-get

and it will tell you that this file is part of the package apt.


?CategoryQuickPackageManagement | CategoryPackageManagement