Re: PATH question

[David <bouncingcats@gmail.com>]

On Sat, 11 Nov 2023 at 18:42, Thomas George <debianlist@mailfence.com> wrote:

> I downloaded the google-chrome deb file to /opt/
>
> used dpkg to install the program.
>
> initial attempt failed, two lib files missing.
>
> added the sbin entries to path and tried again

Hi, the 'apt install' command does have the capability to install a local .deb
package file together with its dependencies if they are available in
the configured repositories.

This capability seems to be not mentioned in the manpages
of 'apt' or 'apt-get' [1].

Looking for an authoritative source of information to show you,
I found only this:
  https://wiki.debian.org/DebianPackageManagement#Installing_and_removing_packages
which says:
  You can also install a .deb file with:
  # apt install </path/to/deb/file/debfile.deb>

My understanding is that the <target> must look like a pathname.
So, to install 'debfile.deb' in the current directory, it should look like
  apt install ./debfile.deb

Maybe someone else knows where the authoritative documentation
of this capability can be read, if there is any.

Maybe someone else knows why this isn't documented in the manpages.
I have a hazy recollection of possibly reading sometime that 'apt'
authors might
intend to rewrite the package regex handling in future, so maybe how this
works might change, so that might be why it hasn't been documented.

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=874763