PPA alternative from Debian

[amex]

Ladies and gentleman, If you want to install software like jitsi-meet or vscode or vscodium or maybe some specific build of Brave browser then you might be interested in extrepo package which is available in your repositories. Just do

Code: Select all

sudo apt install extrepo

What extrepo does is that it adds repo of some external programs which are not available in your distro repos and through which you can install and update them normally using apt.

These are the some of the basic commands of extrepo:

extrepo search <search_key>

extrepo enable <repository_name>

extrepo disable <repository_name>

extrepo update <repository_name>

The package count of extrepo currently only includes 45 packages. However these packages are pretty famous:

signal:
caddyserver:
feistermops:
skype:
gitlab_runner:
lihas:
weechat:
postgresql:
eturnal:
newrelic:
vscode:
vscodium:
brave_nightly:
slack:
i2pd:
teamviewer_preview:
winehq:
raspbian-addons:
brave_beta:
torproject:
yarnpkg:
dns-oarc:
prosody:
janitor:
gitlab_ce:
anydesk:
steam:
debian_official:
node_14.x:
teamviewer_default:
keybase:
ooni:
liquorix:
opera_stable:
consol:
spotify:
mobian:
jitsi-stable:
node_12.x:
brave_release:
msteams:
jenkins:
google_chrome:
node_16.x:
vector:

[manyroads]

There are many other methods by which the addition of applications can be accomplished including appimages, flatpak, pip, brew, cargo, compiles, etc.

[amex]

Of course there are many ways to achieve the same result. But isn't is good to see that such thing even exist. I guess it is a project which was officially started by debian people which makes it more interesting. Personally I got to know about extrepo just yesterday, and I found it to be quite easier to just enable official repo of some software without even opening firefox or going through sandboxing way, Best of all I get to update these packages with just sudo apt update.

[timkb4cq]

I like it. Debian curated external debian repositories for popular programs not in debian proper means we don't have as many to keep rebuilding ourselves and updates will appear sooner.

[Stevo]

Those that get hot new kernels from the Liquorix repo may find any dkms drivers they depend on for video or wi-fi failing to build until we update them ourselves in AHS, since they leave those out of the Liquorix repo. That's been the case for years, but newcomers can't be expected to know that right off.

[indielinuxpower]

I have used extrepo (the 0.8 version from Debian bullseye stable). A Debian backport is also available 0.10~bpo11+1 but I have not tried to use that yet on MX Linux

Since I use systemd by default at startup, I figured I would not have to worry about most start-up issues with individual packages enabled in repos in exprepo..

Some observations (some are rather obvious, some not so much):

• Look to see if software is available in MX Package Installer first (either in Popular Applications tab or MX test repo tab, etc) as of course these are more likely not to have issues with systemd or libraries that conflict.

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• Restarting computer might be necessary after installing extrepo and after enabling individual repos, and in some cases after downloading individual programs via apt. Definitely do a restart after installing extrarepo. This was the case for me.

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• Go to /etc/extrepo/config.yaml and to enable any repositories that host software with non-DFSG-free licenses, you have to
  uncomment "contrib" and/or "non-free" in the list. Some repositories need this, others don't. You can find out if the repository you want need this by using the command extrepo search <search_key> and looking at the result. It will mention if anything other the "main" needs to be enabled.

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• If one has already loaded a package onto their system using a PPA, script, etc. the software must be completely removed (config files can remain) including any cache, keys, and old repositories. Extrepo will sometimes store keys in a different location than the program already on your system, so very important to erase any old ones from before.
  • A perfect example of this would be if one had already added brave-browser-beta via instructions at https://brave.com/linux/#beta-channel-installation. Follow standard uninstall instructions, but afterwards,be sure to do a catfish (or similar program) file search on all files including keys (not just under Home), and delete any that mention beta version of Brave except under .config if you want to keep that. If this is not done, and computer not restarted, you will have issues. Only then would you enable the brave_beta repository for retrepo then install via apt. This is just one example, but would be similar for other programs.

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• When testing software you installed using a repo in extrepo, it might be a good idea to try it first after booting MX Linux with sytemd enabled the first time. That way it is easy to know if any problems you encounter have anything to do with the install, or with the software needing systemd and is not using the shim in MX Linux.

I am not a Linux expert, so forgive me if my terminology is not 100% proper. Feel free to correct me and my terms anywhere one sees fit. I know some things such a possibly needing to change the /etc/extrepo/config.yaml file might not be obvious to some who try using extrepo, so I posted this list.