Debian

apt commands

Most used commands

list         - list packages based on package names
search       - search in package descriptions
show         - show package details
install      - install packages
reinstall    - reinstall packages
remove       - remove packages
autoremove   - Remove automatically all unused packages
update       - update list of available packages
upgrade      - upgrade the system by installing/upgrading packages
full-upgrade - upgrade the system by removing/installing/upgrading packages
edit-sources - edit the source information file

To search for a package

apt-cache search gcc

See a description of package

apt-cache show gcc

Install a package

sudo apt install gcc

Remove a package

sudo apt remove openmpi-bin

To upgrade all packages to latest version

sudo apt update
sudo apt list --upgradable # check if you really want to upgrade all packages
sudo apt upgrade

Setting the locale

If the locale is not set correctly, you can get weird errors while installing some softwares. Edit the file /etc/locale.gen with this line

en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8

and run sudo locale-gen command in the terminal.

Changing hostname

Edit /etc/hostname and /etc/hosts files. If using systemd, run

hostnamectl set-hostname HOSTNAME

Install packages

I use Spack to install scientific packages. Before that, install some needed dependencies

sudo apt install gcc g++ gfortran gnuplot make curl wget git vim

Essential compilers can also be installed like this

sudo apt install build-essential

To get GL/gl.h, install

sudo apt install mesa-common-dev

Next see the Spack tips for installing other softwares. openmpi will also be installed by Spack, so do not install it from apt.

Install locate

sudo apt install locate
sudo updatedb

To get ifconfig

sudo apt install net-tools
export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

For PDF viewing

sudo apt install xpdf evince