.deb is the installation package format used by allDebian based distributions likeUbuntu,Kali ,Linux Mint ,Pop!_OS etc. and of courseDebian itself.

In this post, I will explain how to install.deb files onUbuntu. The same instructions apply for any otherDebian based distribution as mentioned above.

TheUbuntu repositories contain thousands ofdeb packages that can be installed either from theUbuntuSoftware Center or from the command line using theapt.

However many applications are not included in theUbuntu or any 3rd party repositories. Another reason that you'd like to install a localdeb package would be their version on default package manager could be old and you'd like to get new version of them.

Thoseunofficial applications can be downloaded from the developer’s websites or git repositories and installed manually. But be careful when installing.deb packages from unofficial sources especially if it's not open source.

Downloading Deb Package

For demonstration let's downloadVscodeIDE viawget:

$wget-O'vscode-stable.deb''https://code.visualstudio.com/sha/download?build=stable&os=linux-deb-x64'

As you may guess fromquery paramaters this command will download64 bit architecture ofVscodedeb package from officialVscode repository as namedvscode-stable.deb in your current working directory.

Installing Deb Package

When it comes to installingdeb packages there are command-line or graphical user interface options.

From the command line you have several tools at your disposal as well. In the following sections, I will show you how to useapt, anddpkg utilities to install deb packages.

dpkg

dpkg is a low-level package manager for Debian based systems. Use the-i or--install flag to install deb packages withdpkg.

# First update package indices$sudoapt update# Install via dpkg$sudodpkg-i ./vscode-stable.deb

Unlikeapt,dpkg doesn’t resolve dependencies. If you get any dependency errors when installingdeb packages, you can use the followingapt command to resolve and install all package dependencies:

$sudoaptinstall-f

apt

apt is a command-line utility for installing, updating, removing, in short managingdeb packages onUbuntu,Debian, and related Linux distributions. It was introduced inUbuntu 14.04 and combines the most commonly used commands fromapt-get andapt-cache.

Theapt package manager will resolve and install all the package dependencies by itself, so it's better to useapt instead ofdpkg.

To install localdeb packages withapt you need to provide the full path to thedeb file. If the file is located in your current working directory instead of typing the absolute path, you should prepend./ before the package
name. Otherwise,apt will try to retrieve and install the package fromUbuntu’s repositories.

Let's assume you are in the same directory afterwgettingVscodedeb package, then just simply run:

# First update package indices$sudoapt update# Install via apt$sudoaptinstall ./vscode-stable.deb

Conclusion

We saw how to install localdeb packages on aDebian based distribution —as an example Ubuntu. When installingdeb packages prefer usingapt since it resolves and install all the package dependencies.

All done!