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Lekensteyn
Asked: 2011-03-16 05:17:25 +0800 CST

Is there an apt command to download a deb file from the repositories to the current directory?

  • 772

I am often interested in the installation triggers (postinst, postrm) or certain parts of packages (like /usr/share and /etc). Currently, I am running the next command to retrieve the source code:

apt-get source [package-name]

The downside is, this file is often much bigger than the binary package and does not reflect the installation tree.

Right now, I am downloading the packages through http://packages.ubuntu.com/:

  1. Search for [package-name]
  2. Select the package
  3. Click on amd64/i386 for download
  4. Download the actual file

This takes too long for me and as someone who really likes the shell, I would like to do something like the next (imaginary) command:

apt-get get-deb-file [package-name]

I could not find something like this in the apt-get manual page. The most close I found was the --download-only switch, but this puts the package in /var/cache/apt/archives (which requires root permissions) and not in the current directory.

apt

7 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can use the download sub-command of apt, apt-get or aptitude. For example, if $PKG is the package you want, any of these will do:

    apt-get download $PKG
apt download $PKG
aptitude download $PKG

    This doesn't require root privileges. The same can also be approximated using apt-get and wget:

    wget $(apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $PKG | cut -d"'" -f2)

    This will, however, fetch all packages required to install the package, so you can attempt to limit it instead:

    wget $(apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $PKG | cut -d"'" -f2 | grep "/${PKG}_")

    You can also put a wget line into a function, to be able to use it as a command apt-download with the package name as a parameter:

    function apt-download { wget -c $(apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $1 | cut -d"'" -f2); }

    Note the modifications: The $PKG is replaced with $1 and the -c parameter enables continuing interrupted downloads.

    • 85 
  2. sudo apt-get -o dir::cache::archives="/path/to/folder/" -d install package

    Note:

    You need to create an folder named partial in destination folder.

    • 9

  3. In Ubuntu 14.04 (apt package version 1.0.1ubuntu2, I believe), apt-get includes the download command to download the given package as a .deb in the current directory.

    For example, suppose we want to download the file manager Ranger:

    $ apt-get download ranger

    Results in:

    $ ls . | grep ranger
ranger_1.6.0-1_all.deb
    • 5

  4. If you want to download all deb packages from a list, you can do this:

    cat path/to/text/file.txt | xargs apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $PKG | cut -d"'" -f2 | xargs wget

    Just put one package name per line. Like in a requirements.txt file. For example, with contents like this:

    apache2-mpm-event
curl
dmidecode
ethtool
libapache2-mod-wsgi
libapache2-mod-python

    Hope this helps. ;)

    • 3

  5. sudo apt-get install devscripts

    dget [package-name]

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  6. /var/cache/apt/archives is world readable. After apt-get -d, just extract it from there to your home directory. Run dpkg -e /var/cache/apt/archives/foo_version.deb foo while in your home directory and the control files will be dumped into foo/.

    • 0

  7. You can use command debget which is included in the package debian-goodies.

    Install it with:

    sudo apt install debian-goodies

    Download packages using:

    debget <package_name>

    For example:

    debget debian-goodies

    Which will download debian-goodies_0.79_all.deb in your current directory (do pwd to print your current working directory).

    • 0