Debian

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Enable multiarch repository
    1. Enable 32-bit repository.
    2. List other arch.
  3. Enable add-apt-repository
  4. Use ISO file as offline repository
  5. APT Errors

Introduction

Debian OS is excellent to use for system that requires little maintenance. All that is needed is to update the security patch regularly.

Enable multiarch repository

Most modern PC uses 64-bit architecture. Some packages (ie. Steam) requires 32-bit library.
So we need to enable multiarch feature.

Enable 32-bit repository. 

dpkg --add-architecture i386

List other arch. 

dpkg --print-foreign-architectures

Enable add-apt-repository

Whilst using debian, sometime we need to use Ubuntu PPA. The easiest way to do is by doing this. Be warned that not every PPA works well Debian.

  1. Install software-properties-common. 
     apt install software-properties-common
  2. Add repository using add-apt-repository. 
     add-apt-repository ppa:<PPA Name>

Use ISO file as offline repository

This is useful when installing Debian Lite because network-manager is not installed by default. We need DVD Debian Installer to use as the apt source. Follow these steps.

  1. Create an empty folder. 
     mkdir -p /home/<username>/apt-source
  2. Mount ISO file to the newly created folder. 
     mount -o loop {file.iso} /home/<username>/apt-source
  3. Add entry to /etc/apt/sources.list. 
     deb [trusted=yes] file:///home/<username>/apt-source/ stable main
  4. Update repository on your PC. 
     apt update

    1. sources.list file only support absolute filepath.
    2. You might need to edit stable to the OS name.

APT Errors

Using offline or ISO repository sometime throws error like this.
A Check-Valid-Until is a yes/no value which controls if APT should try to detect replay attacks. However, some repositories such as historic archives are not updated any more by design, so this check can be disabled by setting this option to false.

apt -o Acquire::Check-Valid-Until=false update