apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

jimjamz · 2020-01-24 12:01:31

'apt-add-repository' is available in Debian 10. This is a useful way of configuring repositories for non-free use.

e.g.

'apt-add-repository non-free' will enable non-free for all repositories
'apt-add-repository non-free -r' will disable it.

I can't find such commands in BL.
Are they available through an alternative command?

iMBeCil · 2020-01-24 12:29:10

^This is command in software-properties-common package, see for example add-apt-repository-command-not-found.

It is enough to install it by:

$ sudo apt install software-properties-common

EDIT: perhaps this is not what you are talking about? There is a difference in the command this package provides 'add-apt-repository' vs. your 'apt-add-repository' command. Could you provide link where this command is announced in Debian 10?

Last edited by iMBeCil (2020-01-24 12:33:07)

Sector11 · 2020-01-24 14:52:26

https://manpages.debian.org/buster/soft … .1.en.html

DeepDayze · 2020-01-27 01:48:42

The apt-add-repository command is commonly used in Ubuntu from what I recollect and now sure how applicable this command would be in Debian proper.

Note: DON'T add Ubuntu repositories to your BL system!!! You will break it.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2020-01-27 01:49:42)

manyroads · 2020-01-27 02:25:58

It is not wise to perform *buntu repo adds in Debian...

DeepDayze · 2020-01-27 02:42:48

manyroads wrote:

It is not wise to perform *buntu repo adds in Debian...

Yes, even though some of those packages may be Debian compatible, it WILL break package upgrades, particularly on Debian Stable which BL itself is based on.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2020-01-27 02:43:44)

Sector11 · 2020-01-27 04:28:07

The link I posted is the Debian man page for "Buster":

Sector11 wrote:

https://manpages.debian.org/buster/soft … .1.en.html

Not Ubuntu.

Now let me correct the "link" from before, second post I believe:

THIS IS WRONG

One of the many ways to install software on Ubuntu or Debian is to use PPA (Personal Package Archive).

Correct would be:

One of the many ways to install software on Ubuntu is to use PPA (Personal Package Archive).
This could quite possible break a Debian system and is not recommended.

Why:

Ubuntu is based on Debian.
Ubuntu makes changes to the original Debian files.
Debian is not compatible with these changes.

Now that is not true of 100% of the files ...
BUT no one know "which ones were changed" yikes

Anyone up for a little "Linux-roulette" devil

Last edited by Sector11 (2020-01-27 04:29:18)

DeepDayze · 2020-01-29 17:23:07

I do believe there are instructions to rebuild a Ubuntu package from source on Debian somewhere which will build the package against Debian's libraries. However the resultant package might not build or not even run properly due to the changes that are made to the source code of the Ubuntu application which might not be compatible with Debian or that the dependencies are not available on Debian but only in Ubuntu.

Best thing to do? Stay away from Ubuntu packages period or if there's an application in Ubuntu that is not in Debian, why not reach out to the developers of said application to see if they can be willing to help port it to Debian.

Last edited by DeepDayze (2020-01-29 17:25:07)

jimjamz · 2020-02-02 19:10:11

There hasn't been any use of Ubuntu and especially not in relation to this command.

It was a command within Debian 10 that I found, which made life very easy to enable/disable non-free repositories when wanting to install Intel wireless drivers. AFAIK, by default, this package is already installed in Debian 10. I did not have to install it separately.

My original question was more of a wonder, as to why this wasn't automatically installed within BL, seeing as BL is built on top of Debian.

rbh · 2020-02-02 20:39:25

jimjamz wrote:

It was a command within Debian 10 that I found
[...]
My original question was more of a wonder, as to why this wasn't automatically installed within BL, seeing as BL is built on top of Debian.

On my newly installed Debian LXDE (Buster), software-properties-common, ain't present, I haven't uninstalled it.

jimjamz · 2020-02-03 21:46:26

rbh wrote:

jimjamz wrote:
It was a command within Debian 10 that I found
[...]
My original question was more of a wonder, as to why this wasn't automatically installed within BL, seeing as BL is built on top of Debian.
On my newly installed Debian LXDE (Buster), software-properties-common, ain't present, I haven't uninstalled it.

Going a bit off-topic here so I don't want to stray too far.
I installed Debian 10 with GNOME using disc 1 ISO. The only packages on this new install are virtualbox-6.1, cifs-utils and firmware-iwlwifi, none of which invoke software-properties-common, yet it is installed.
Anyhow, whether the BL authors decide this package warrants a default installation is up to them. I merely wanted to bring my observation of using Debian 10 as a clean, VirtualBox hosting platform for BL VMs.

rbh · 2020-02-04 00:33:39

Package software-properties-common is not standard package on all Debian flavors. For those who wants it, it is easy to add. I prefer to edit apt-files manually...

Debian Gnome, is very much not Bunsenlab...
And, BunsenLab is, I think to prefer as Host for VMs, over Gnome hosts.

iMBeCil · 2020-02-20 09:27:29

BEWARE OF software-properties-common PACKAGE!

I have an installation of BL in VirtualBox for testing purposes, and while testing stuff in this thread, I installed 'software-properties-common' ... and as a dependency it pulled up package 'unattended-upgrades', and this package does exactly what it says: it does update OS without user request (and user intervention), just after boot up (or login?) glasses

$ man unattended-upgrade
unattended-upgrade(8)                    System Manager's Manual                    unattended-upgrade(8)

NAME
       unattended-upgrade - automatic installation of security (and other) upgrades

SYNOPSIS
       unattended-upgrade [options]

DESCRIPTION
       This  program can download and install security upgrades automatically and unattended, taking care
       to only install packages from the configured APT source, and checking for dpkg prompts about  con‐
       figuration file changes. All output is logged to /var/log/unattended-upgrades/*.log.

       This script is the backend for the APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade option and designed to be run
       from cron (e.g. via /etc/cron.daily/apt).

OPTIONS
       unattended-upgrade accepts the following options:

       -h, --help
              help output

       -d, --debug
              extra debug output into /var/log/unattended-upgrades.log

       --dry-run
              Just simulate installing updates, do not actually do it

CONFIGURATION
       The configuration is done via the apt configuration mechanism. The default configuration file  can
       be found at /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades

AUTHORS
       unattended-upgrade is written by Michael Vogt <mvo@ubuntu.com>

       This manual page was originally written by Michael Vogt <mvo@ubuntu.com>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (C)  2005-2009 Canonical

Just a heads up for people who didn't know that. (I didn't, I got scared when I couldn't manually do 'apt upgrade' after boot/login, because above package already started it.) Apparently, this is some Ubuntu crapstuff roll I certainly don't want upgrade which I didn't initiate!

Last edited by iMBeCil (2020-02-20 09:28:29)

rbh · 2020-02-20 10:50:46

But software-properties-common has no dependencies to "unattended-upgrades"! At least, none is listed. And although Unattended-upgrades gets installed with software-properties-common...

Unattended-upgrades has been in debian repo since 2006.
"As of Debian 9 (Stretch) both the unattended-upgrades and apt-listchanges packages are installed by default and upgrades are enabled with the GNOME desktop."

On the machine I write this on, I've installed unattended-upgrades, but not configured anything. The package installs nothing. I've thogugt to configure fetching of all packages localey, installing all security updates...

I think default is runing update, so looking if there is any upgrade to do..

iMBeCil · 2020-02-20 11:14:06

^I wasn't completely precise ... the dependency chain is:

software-properties-common ---> dep: python3-software-properties ---> rec: unattended-upgrades

rbh wrote:

Unattended-upgrades has been in debian repo since 2006.
"As of Debian 9 (Stretch) both the unattended-upgrades and apt-listchanges packages are installed by default and upgrades are enabled with the GNOME desktop.

I know ... my intention is to warn people here, running BL, by installing 'software-properties-common' one ends up with configured and functional/enabled 'unattended-upgrades'. (From 'man', it seems originated from Ubuntu.)

By all means, (anyone) do install 'software-properties-common', but be aware of consequences.

Last edited by iMBeCil (2020-02-20 11:15:16)

damo · 2020-02-20 11:55:46

^ For that very reason, by default I use --no-install-recommends, unless I know there is something particular I need.

rbh · 2020-02-20 12:31:21

rbh wrote:

Hmmm, but is it so? I have it installed, still have to manually download upgrades. Do not recall configured it yet.

My memory deceived me. I have disabled it in systemd:

# systemctl disable apt-daily-upgrade.service
# systemctl disable apt-daily.service

At lest check configfiles, so it does not do something unwanted.

Default config is to install debian security-upgrades

Last edited by rbh (2020-02-20 20:28:11)

rbh · 2020-02-20 12:36:42

damo wrote:

^ For that very reason, by default I use --no-install-recommends, unless I know there is something particular I need.

A little more lazy aproach, is to have setting allow recomends, allways check what the result will gonna be and bort only if something you dont want will bee pulled in...

iMBeCil · 2020-02-20 12:43:24

^ and ^^ As I said, I was testing OP's question on VirtualBox test BL install, so no harm has been done smile On my main setup, I carefully inspect what I install ... and since I'm on sid, my best friend is 'apt-listbugs' package wink

As for the 'unattended-upgrades' package: I noticed activity of the 'unattended-upgrades' just after boot: I immediately tried 'apt upgrade' in terminal, and got the message about locked files, a usual message for someone running two 'apt upgrade' simultaneously (from two separate terminals, for example). After quick inspection of the situation, and after inspecting '/var/log/apt/history' and '/var/log/unattended-upgrades/history.log' I concluded that this self-update sh*t started after installing 'software-properties-common'. Hence my post ...

If necessary, I can try to recreate all this on vanilla BL install (in VirtualBox) ...

Last edited by iMBeCil (2020-02-20 12:44:07)

Sector11 · 2020-02-20 13:43:08

damo wrote:

^ For that very reason, by default I use --no-install-recommends, unless I know there is something particular I need.

Absolutely agree --no-install-recommends is tied for "1st place" as my best friend along with "apt-listbugs"

From my aliases list:

## CHECK DEPENDENCIES OF PACKAGES
##   depends shows a listing of each dependency a package has and all the
##   possible other packages that can fulfill that dependency.
alias dep='echo "alias dep=apt-cache depends" && apt-cache depends'
##   rdepends shows a listing of each reverse dependency a package has.
alias rdep='echo "alias apt-cache rdepends filename" && apt-cache rdepends'
##		or OMG it's a list of depends depending on depends
alias rrdep='echo "alias apt-rdepends filename" && apt-rdepends'

Last edited by Sector11 (2020-02-20 13:48:08)

johnraff · 2020-02-21 00:17:40

I don't think unattended-upgrades does much unless you configure it first. At most, as rbh says, just security updates by default. I was surprised to read it even blocked a regular apt operation around boot time. Maybe it was just downloading the latest package information?

I don't know about the Ubuntu connection, but at one point the Debian devs were discussing including it in the default Debian setup. There was opposition though, so it got dropped.

iMBeCil · 2020-02-21 00:42:43

johnraff wrote:

I don't think unattended-upgrades does much unless you configure it first. At most, as rbh says, just security updates by default. I was surprised to read it even blocked a regular apt operation around boot time. Maybe it was just downloading the latest package information?

It was doing 'apt upgrade', i.e. it was installing available upgrades! I'm positive, since I have to wait a few minutes before I could do 'apt upgrade' myself in terminal. And just after boot, I noticed I could upgrade several tens of packages (I issued 'apt update'), and after few minutes 'apt update' showed me all packages are up to date.

I have nothing against 'unattended-upgrades' package which by itself is not configured to do auto-apt-upgrade ... I just wanted to warn people that installing 'software-properties-common' package also installs 'unattended-upgrades' package, and it comes configured to do automatic 'apt upgrade'.

johnraff · 2020-02-21 01:30:40

^Well, thanks for the warning.

I had u-a installed a year or two ago, just to see what it was like, but at the time I had to specifically enable it for it to do anything. I guess its default behaviour has changed.

#1 2020-01-24 12:01:31

apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#2 2020-01-24 12:29:10

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#3 2020-01-24 14:52:26

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#4 2020-01-27 01:48:42

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#5 2020-01-27 02:25:58

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#6 2020-01-27 02:42:48

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#7 2020-01-27 04:28:07

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#8 2020-01-29 17:23:07

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#9 2020-02-02 19:10:11

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#10 2020-02-02 20:39:25

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#11 2020-02-03 21:46:26

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#12 2020-02-04 00:33:39

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#13 2020-02-20 09:27:29

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#14 2020-02-20 10:50:46

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#15 2020-02-20 11:14:06

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#16 2020-02-20 11:55:46

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#17 2020-02-20 12:31:21

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#18 2020-02-20 12:36:42

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#19 2020-02-20 12:43:24

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#20 2020-02-20 13:43:08

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#21 2020-02-21 00:17:40

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#22 2020-02-21 00:42:43

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

#23 2020-02-21 01:30:40

Re: apt-add-repository - Availability in BL?

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