How to Install Deb Packages
Tags: debian, ubuntu, linux, os
Published: 2022-03-28 16:42:13

---
title: How to Install Deb Packages
published: true
date: 2022-03-10 00:00:00 UTC
tags: debian, ubuntu, linux, os
canonical_url: https://tech.serhatteker.com/post/2022-03/installing-deb-packages/
---

`.deb` is the installation package format used by all **Debian** based distributions like **Ubuntu**, **Kali** , **Linux Mint** , **Pop!_OS** etc. and of course **Debian** itself.

In this post, I will explain how to install `.deb` files on **Ubuntu**. The same instructions apply for any other **Debian** based distribution as mentioned above.

The **Ubuntu** repositories contain thousands of **deb** packages that can be installed either from the **Ubuntu** *Software Center* or from the command line using the `apt`.

However many applications are not included in the **Ubuntu** or any 3rd party repositories.  Another reason that you'd like to install a local **deb** package would be their version on default package manager could be old and you'd like to get new version of them.

Those *unofficial* applications can be downloaded from the developer’s websites or git repositories and installed manually. But be careful when installing `.deb` packages from unofficial sources especially if it's not open source.

## Downloading Deb Package

For demonstration let's download [Vscode] *IDE* via [wget]:

```bash
$ wget -O 'vscode-stable.deb' 'https://code.visualstudio.com/sha/download?build=stable&os=linux-deb-x64'
```

As you may guess from `query paramaters` this command will download *64 bit* architecture of [Vscode] **deb** package from official [Vscode] repository as named **vscode-stable.deb** in your current working directory.


## Installing Deb Package


When it comes to installing **deb** packages there are command-line or graphical user interface options.

From the command line you have several tools at your disposal as well. In the following sections, I will show you how to use `apt`, and `dpkg` utilities to install deb packages.

### dpkg

`dpkg` is a low-level package manager for Debian based systems. Use the `-i` or `--install` flag to install deb packages with `dpkg`.

```bash
# First update package indices
$ sudo apt update
# Install via dpkg
$ sudo dpkg -i ./vscode-stable.deb
```

Unlike `apt`, `dpkg` doesn’t resolve dependencies. If you get any dependency errors when installing **deb** packages, you can use the following `apt` command to resolve and install all package dependencies:

```bash
$ sudo apt install -f
```

### apt

`apt` is a command-line utility for installing, updating, removing, in short managing **deb** packages on **Ubuntu**, **Debian**, and related Linux distributions. It was introduced in *Ubuntu 14.04* and combines the most commonly used commands from `apt-get` and `apt-cache`.

The `apt` package manager will resolve and install all the package dependencies by itself, so it's better to use `apt` instead of `dpkg`.

To install local **deb** packages with `apt` you need to provide the full path to the **deb** file. If the file is located in your current working directory instead of typing the absolute path, you should prepend `./` before the package
name.  Otherwise, `apt` will try to retrieve and install the package from **Ubuntu**’s repositories.

Let's assume you are in the same directory after `wget`ting [Vscode] **deb** package, then just simply run:

```bash
# First update package indices
$ sudo apt update
# Install via apt
$ sudo apt install ./vscode-stable.deb
```

## Conclusion

We saw how to install local **deb** packages on a **Debian** based distribution —as an example Ubuntu. When installing **deb** packages prefer using `apt` since it resolves and install all the package dependencies.


All done!




[wget]: https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
[Vscode]: https://code.visualstudio.com/