How to add a Debian Repository

It is strongly suggested that you read Adding Xandros Repositories before blindly following the instructions here. The article includes instructions for safely adding debian etch repositories, though you do this at your own risk. Your system will be rendered unsupportable

“The official word from Xandros is that adding Debian repositories will break Xandros.”

The above referenced wiki article goes into considerable detail about pinning repositories which is not considered here.

As Xandros is based upon the debian kernel a lot of additional software packages can be downloaded from the debian feeds. Adding the debian feeds is simple:

1. start eeePC
2. get a shell by typing ctrl-alt-T
3. become superuser by typing sudo su -
4. browse to Debian worldwide mirror sites and select a mirror near to you. You might want to use netselect to find which one has the best connectivity but netselect is outside the scope of this post. Also apt-spy might be usable.
5. Use VI as your text editor. [NB. An easy alternative to VI is kwrite, the default text editor of EeePC)
6. edit /etc/apt/sources.list (vi /etc/apt/sources.list) [NB. To run the default text editor from a terminal, type this command: sudo kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list], and add the following line:
   deb <your mirror goes here> etch main contrib non-free
   As I am in NL I entered ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian at the place where it says <your mirror goes here>, but if you are not in NL you should find a closer mirror (could also be an http mirror)
   
7. run “sudo apt-get update” This will update the packages lists. (btw, I use apt-get from the command line; you might also try to use synaptic)

An example of the Debian repo entry in /etc/apt/sources.list for NL mirror is:

deb ftp://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

Note: kde libraries and kernel dependent modules from Debian etch repos do not work for your EeePC. Therefore, NEVER RUN “apt-get upgrade” or you may break your system. The article at Adding Xandros Repositories has instructions about pinning to make this much safer.

You can use another release (e.g. lenny, if you want newer packages), not just “etch”, however, etch seems to be most compatible. Using lenny will almost certainly upgrade your libc, thus forcing you to update many packages, which will absolutely break things.

rio sosh bouygues