Managing Debian Software with APT (apt-get etc) |
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APT HOWTO
Chapter 2 - Basic Configuration
2.1 The /etc/apt/sources.list file
As part of its operation, APT uses a file that lists the 'sources' from which
packages can be obtained. This file is /etc/apt/sources.list.
The entries in this file normally follow this format:
deb https://host/debian distribution section1 section2 section3
deb-src https://host/debian distribution section1 section2 section3
Of course, the above entries are fictitious and should not be used. The first
word on each line, deb or deb-src, indicates the type
of archive: whether it contains binary packages (deb), that is,
the pre-compiled packages that we normally use, or source packages
(deb-src), which are the original program sources plus the Debian
control file (.dsc) and the diff.gz containing the
changes needed for `debianizing' the program.
We usually find the following in the default Debian sources.list:
# See sources.list(5) for more information, especially
# Remember that you can only use http, ftp or file URIs
# CDROMs are managed through the apt-cdrom tool.
deb https://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
deb https://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
deb https://security.debian.org stable/updates main contrib non-free
# Uncomment if you want the apt-get source function to work
#deb-src https://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free
#deb-src https://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US stable/non-US main contrib non-free
These are the lines needed by a basic Debian install. The first
deb line points to the official archive, the second to the non-US
archive and the third to the archive of Debian security updates.
The two last lines are commented out (with a `#' in front), so apt-get will
ignore them. These are deb-src lines, that is, they point to
Debian source packages. If you often download program sources for testing or
recompiling, uncomment them.
The /etc/apt/sources.list file can contain several types of lines.
APT knows how to deal with archives of types http,
ftp, file (local files, e.g., a directory containing
a mounted ISO9660 filesystem) and ssh, that I know of.
Do not forget to run apt-get update after modifying the
/etc/apt/sources.list file. You must do this to let APT obtain
the package lists from the sources you specified.
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