How do you install .deb files in OSX?

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SaabApple Author

Level 1

8 points

How do you install .deb files in OSX?

Other OS, LINUX

Posted on Mar 26, 2010 11:13 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

J D McIninch

Level 5

4,091 points

Mar 26, 2010 12:35 PM in response to SaabApple

You don't.

Debian software packages are binary software packages for Linux. They are dependent on another operating system, and you need to use the Debian package manager (which OS X doesn't provide).

You can, if you want, use MacPorts or FINK instead. Most of the Linux packages available as RPMs or Debian packages are also available for OS X via MacPorts and FINK.

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Answer 2

Mar 27, 2010 12:38 AM in response to SaabApple

Can you give some more detail of what you were doing in fink? For instance, what you were trying to install, what command you used to install, what happened, and how you found the .deb files but discovered that the package was not installed.

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Answer 3

Bill Scott

Level 6

11,459 points

Mar 27, 2010 6:57 AM in response to SaabApple

fink makes a debian (deb) file AND installs the package by default, if you issued a command like


fink install packagename

where "packagename" is the name of the specific package you want to install.

To see if it is indeed installed, type


fink list packagename

and you should see the letter i in a column before the name of the package.

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Answer 4

SaabApple Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 28, 2010 6:35 AM in response to SaabApple

I installed the sylpheed e-mail client using dpkg -i sylpheed.deb and it seemed to take, but I cannot seem to launch it nor have an idea as to where to locate it, etc.

It said "success" once I ran that command, so I am surprised.

Please help.

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Answer 5

SaabApple Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 26, 2010 12:37 PM in response to SaabApple

Thanks for your response.

I used fink which apparently created these .deb files, but has not installed them. How can you use fink to actually install the .deb files specifically?

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