Setup the Debian Backports apt repository
by
Pierre-Yves Landuré
—
last modified
Oct 01, 2013 11:06
The Debian Backports repositories provide recent versions of fast release software. Maintained by the Debian community, they allow to install recent software without newer dependencies.
This howto is tested on :
- Debian 6.0 Squeeze
- Debian 7.0 Wheezy
Installation
Install the Linux Standard Base software :
command apt-get install lsb-release
Detect the distribution name :
DEBIAN_VERSION=$(command lsb_release -cs)
Detect the repository base URL :
BASE_URL="http://ftp.debian.org/debian"
if ! command wget --quiet --spider "${BASE_URL}/dists/${DEBIAN_VERSION}-backports"; then
BASE_URL="http://backports.debian.org/debian-backports"
fi
Add the software repository to the apt configuration :
command echo "# Debian Backports
deb ${BASE_URL} ${DEBIAN_VERSION}-backports main" \ > '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-backports.list'
Update the list of available packages :
command apt-get update
Usage
You can now install software from Backports repository by using the -t option :
# command apt-get -t "squeeze-backports" install "package"
Thanks
- Thanks to Debian Backports repository maintainers.