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Albert S. 2023-04-09 16:05:36 +02:00
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# debfetcher
debfetcher automates fetching and installing certain .deb packages from apt repos.
debfetcher enables fetching, installing and updating certain .deb packages from apt repos for non-Debian
distributions.
## Features
- apt signature and package checksum verification
@ -11,9 +12,16 @@ Often they are not available in the repos of others distros. Even if they are, s
Examples for such packages are: Brave, Signal-Desktop, Element-Desktop, Spotify etc.
debfetcher can fetch such packages from the official apt repos.
debfetcher can fetch such packages from the official apt repos and keep them up to date.
The binaries in the .deb actually work on other distributions (often)
The binaries in the .deb actually work on other distributions (often). In fact, distros
often use simply fetch the .deb packages from the apt repo in their templates. But they aren't always
quick to keep their template up to date with the latest upstream version.
There is thus hardly a practical benefit in using your distros package manager to install those. Your distro's
package is just a proxy for the .deb. Although you can make a version bump yourself,
it is rather inconvenient and you'll have to monitor for new releases yourself. Although being out
of date is not a big problem often, it obviously can be when you are missing out on security updates.
debfetcher simply identifies the latest version of a package in the corresponding apt repo, downloads it and then installs the binaries from the .deb.
@ -34,7 +42,8 @@ It is, and will most certainly remain, a hack (although a useful one for me)
### Sounds overall rather dirty. Does this even work?
Naturally, this will not work for all packages due to ABI issues or library version mismatches.
However, using the .deb even for distros not based on debian is an approach taken by distris for propritary packages or packages where building from source is a significant maintenance load (i. e. electron-based apps). Overall, the idea is tested and not new.
But as said above, this is not my idea. Using the .deb even for distros not based on Debian is an approach taken by distris for propritary packages or packages where building from source is a significant maintenance load (i. e. electron-based apps). Overall, the idea is tested and not new.
### What if not all dependencies are installed?
debfetcher aims to be distro-agnostic. It will not install any dependencies.
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```
## User-level installation
If you don't need/want a system-wide installation , debfetcher can be used to install a package in your local user profile. Therefore, debfetcher can be used without polluting your /.
If you don't need/want a system-wide installation of a package, debfetcher can be used to install a package in your local user profile. Therefore, debfetcher can be used without polluting your /.
Refer to `debfetcher.user.conf.sample` to change the appropriate settings.
@ -73,6 +82,9 @@ Execute
DEBFETCHER_CONFIG="/path/to/debfetcher.user.conf" ./debfetcher.sh get signal
```
Note: The config/data directories of the installed packages won't change, which may or may not be
problematic.
## Usage
### Install a package
```