3 Command Line Tools to Install Local Debian (.DEB) Packages

In this tutorial we will learn how to install local software packages (.DEB) in Debian and its derivatives such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint using three different command line tools and they are dpkg, apt and gdebi.

This is useful to those new users who have migrated from Windows to Ubuntu or Linux Mint. The very basic problem they face is installing local software on system.

However, Ubuntu and Linux Mint has its own Graphical Software Center for easy software installation, but we will be looking forward to installing packages through terminal way.

1. Install Software Using Dpkg Command

Dpkg is a package manager for Debian and its derivatives such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint. It is used to install, build, remove and manage .deb packages. but unlike other Linux package management systems, it cannot automatically download and install packages with their dependencies.

To install a local package, use the dpkg command with the -i flag along with package name as shown.

$ sudo dpkg -i teamviewer_amd64.deb

If you get any dependency errors while installing or after installing and launching a program, you can use the following apt command to resolve and install dependencies using the -f flag, which tells the program to fix broken dependencies.

$ sudo apt-get install -f

To remove a package use -r option or if you want to remove all its files including configuration files, you can purge it using the --purge option as shown.

$ sudo dpkg -r teamviewer       [Remove Package]
$ sudo dpkg --purge teamviewer  [Remove Package with Configuration Files]

To know more about installed packages, read our article that shows how to list all files installed from a .deb package.

2. Install Software Using Apt Command

The apt command is a advanced command-line tool, which offers new software package installation, existing software package upgradation, updating of the package list index, and even upgrading the whole Ubuntu or Linux Mint system.

It also offers apt-get and apt-cache command-line tools for managing packages more interactively on Debian and its derivatives such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint systems.

Essentially, apt-get or apt do not understand .deb files, they are designed to primarily handle package names (for example teamviewer, apache2, mariadb etc..) and they retrieve and install .deb archives associated with a package name, from a source specified in the /etc/apt/sources.list file.

The only trick to installing a local Debian package using apt-get or apt is by specifying a local relative or absolute path (./ if in current dir) to the package, otherwise it will try to retrieve the package from remote sources and the operation will fail.

$ sudo apt install ./teamviewer_amd64.deb
$ sudo apt-get install ./teamviewer_amd64.deb

To remove a package use remove option or if you want to remove all its files including configuration files, you can purge it using the purge option as shown.

$ sudo apt-get remove teamviewer
$ sudo apt-get purge teamviewer
OR
$ sudo apt remove teamviewer
$ sudo apt purge teamviewer

3. Install Software Using Gdebi Command

gdebi is a tiny command-line tool for installing local deb packages. It resolves and installs package dependencies on the fly. To install a package, use the following command.

$ sudo gdebi teamviewer_13.1.3026_amd64.deb

To remove a package installed from gdebi, you can use apt, apt-get or dpkg commands using purge option as shown.

$ sudo apt purge teamviewer
OR
$ sudo apt-get purge teamviewer
OR
$ sudo dpkg --purge teamviewer

That’s It! In this tutorial, we have explained three different command line tools for installing or removing local Debian packages in Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

If you know any other way of installing local packages, do share with us using our comment section below.