Unix and Linux Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [dpkg]

The base software for Debian/Ubuntu/Mint package management. Use this tag for questions about dpkg and its companion utilities and the .deb file format.

Dpkg is the Debian core package management tool. It manipulates installed packages and performs installation of packages in .deb format. Dpkg originates from the Debian Linux distribution and is used by others such as and .

Dpkg manipulates individual package files. It is rarely used for day-to-day package management; for that, programs based on the APT suite are preferable as they understand package dependencies and can automatically download packages.

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How to install a deb file, by dpkg -i or by apt?

I have a deb package for installation. Shall I install by dpkg -i my.deb, or by apt? Will both handle the software dependency problem well? If by apt, how can I install from the deb by apt?
Tim
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What are the pros/cons of deb vs. rpm?

For whatever reasons, I've always used RPM based distributions (Fedora, Centos and currently openSUSE). I have often heard it stated that deb is better than rpm, but when asked why, have never been able to get a coherent answer (usually get some…
Evan
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I deleted /bin/rm. How do I recover it?

Just for fun, I thought I would use this command on my Raspberry Pi running Raspbian: sudo rm -f /bin/rm I thought I could just reinstall coreutils: I was wrong! apt-get install --reinstall coreutils gives an error from dpkg, saying it couldn't…
user60684
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How to uninstall a .deb installed with dpkg?

I installed Unified Remote using dpkg: dpkg -i urserver.deb How do I uninstall it so I can reinstall from scratch?
Tomblarom
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dpkg cannot find ldconfig/start-stop-daemon in the PATH variable

I was trying to install bsd-mailx utility the package got installed however I am wondering about the error. This is the error I get: Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable. dpkg: warning:…
user87142
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What are .deb and .rpm and how are they different from .msi?

What are these file formats and how do they differ from the .msi format in Windows? Also what are the pros and cons of these package management schemes?
deathholes
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Installing a .deb package in home directory

Is it possible to install a .deb package completely under my home directory at debian?
free_easy
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"E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) " What does this mean?

I've seen this message several times whenever someone has a problem installing, upgrading or removing some piece of software, but I wonder, what does it mean, and more importantly, is possible to solve it? (Reading database ... 81657 files and…
Braiam
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Feeding input values to dpkg-reconfigure in a non-interactive way

I would like to configure ubuntu package via dpkg-reconfigure with all the values supplied via non-interactive mode (in the script). In fact my case is firebird confiiguration (http://www.firebirdsql.org/manual/ubusetup.html), that when using…
Peter Butkovic
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Is it possible to build a Linux distro supporting both RPM and .deb packages?

I am wondering if it is theoretically possible to build a Linux distro that can both support rpm and debian packages. Are there any distros live out there that support both? And if not is it even possible?
alkabary
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Right way to get the list of installed packages matching a pattern?

I'm on system running a (fairly recent-)Debian-based distribution. I'd like to generate a plain list of all installed packages matching a certain pattern. I can do that by, running, say, apt list --installed "linux-image-*" | cut -d/ -f1 but I get…
einpoklum
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dpkg: error: cannot remove architecture 'i386' currently in use by the database

I used this command to add i386 arch: sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 And then immediately after without installing any packages I tried to remove the i386 arch like so: sudo dpkg --remove-architecture i386 And i got the error: dpkg: error:…
daka
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How do I replicate installed package selections from one Debian system to another? (Debian Wheezy)

I am trying to set up a staging environment in a VM, in order to test updates before applying them to my main system. In order to do so, I have done a basic installation of Debian Wheezy (same as on the main system) in the VM, then ran as root from…
user
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dpkg replacing files on a FAT filesystem

When you upgrade or reinstall a package with dpkg (and ultimately anything that uses it, like apt-get etc) it backs up the existing files by creating a hard link to the file before replacing it. That way if the unpack fails it can easily put back…
Majenko
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What packages are installed by default in Debian? Is there a term for that set? Why some of those packages are `automatically installed` and some not?

Is there a term to refer to the subset of packages that is automatically installed by Debian distribution? I though that it had something to do with packages priorities, but it doesn't seem to be the case, cause there are packages of all the…
Boris Burkov
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