Install a debian package

Q&A
1

I’d like to install a debian package for a project that does not already have a bundle. If it installs and runs well I’d like to share it. (ubiquiti Unifi controller).

Any ideas? or someone willing to share a thread to get started… or do it for me for fun :slight_smile:

sorry if this is too short or lacks details.

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2

https://pkgs.org should be of help.

BUT , always remember to backup your data/partition BEFORE any installation. You never know.

I had success with Cent OS and Fedora packages, even Ubuntu’s, though they’re a mess to deal with, and I fear that Debian’s can also get tough. It can get “messy” and should you ever overwrite a symlink with a folder, be ready for serious damage. Basically, you must always check what’s going to get merged. Dependencies can also be problematic.
The best shot is to add a third-party repository in swupd to avoid dangerous “DIYs”.
Nevertheless, pkgs.org is exactly the reason why I managed to get Firefox to work with most videos, sooo…

Plus, should you ever doubt the legitimacy of any package, virustotal can give you hints but pkgs does use official repositories unless stated otherwise.

EDIT: somebody is going to hate me for this, but you can install APT from pkgs.org, if it doesn’t break everything apart. :sweat_smile:

3

I’ve had some pretty good luck with rpm using package-utils, other than that I just use make or meson. Distros on the Debian end tend to veer away from native Linux a bit much, and that can be problematic when dealing with CL, which keeps a close eye upstream. You’ll likely find a good bit of hassle.

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4

THANKS for the answers… this was the stupidest question. So let me explain…

I’m rebuilding my home network. It serves my IoT, kids school computers, wife’s work computer, my work, my work lab, and so on. The amount of traffic we generate … ANYWAY I’m rebuilding my home network with VLANs and LTE backup. In order to manage all the gear I need a “controller” - a designated machine to manage all of the network devices. My network is evolving and I’m migrating away from CoreOS. While it served me well in the past it’s not my future. My spare already deployed systems happen to be a ClearLinux and I wanted to use it for the software. The vendor does not offer source as an option. Anyway… they do have one solution being that they have an alliance with the software installed. This is the answer because I do not want to manage yet another system.

THANK YOU for all your help.

1 Like
5

Use a container for this! This Unifi controller container works awesome on CL: Docker

2 Likes
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I have several issues with docker… but I come from the “zero trust” POV… so installing some random container, even if well intentioned, is not on the menu. FYI I ended up buying a Unify gateway. It’s effectively a tiny computer with their software installed as a package. This way upgrades are automagic THANKS

7

Glad you got it sorted! Just wanted to point out that you can totally just build the container from the dockerfile after pulling it from github and inspecting it.

8

unless the dockerfile builds on the scratch container there are untrusted deps that I would be letting into my network.

thanks