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While there's plenty of software available out of the box for Ubuntu (and all the derivatives), some developers only provide .deb downloads from their websites - that's where deb-get comes in.

The idea is that it sources various extra applications for you, giving apt-get like functionality for 3rd party repositories or via direct download. Sounds pretty neat! A nice time-saving tool developed by Martin Wimpress, lead on Ubuntu MATE. It could help when you're getting setup initially, or just looking for something that isn't available from Ubuntu directly or Ubuntu perhaps has an older version than what you want to install.

Wimpress said the idea is directly inspired by Software Boutique, a tool used on Ubuntu MATE that does very much the same thing with a curated selection.

There's quite a lot of software already supported so go give it a whirl and see what you think.

Check it out on GitHub.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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fenglengshun Jun 1, 2022
The project is very interesting - I've been opening a few requests and some gets accepted pretty fast, others a bit slower.

I think this is handy for discovery, quick setup, and maintaining updates. I didn't even know that the Zoom app I have was outdated (I'm more used to Zoom natively installed - I've had bad experiences with screen sharing before and prefer to play it safe. I'll definitely keep using this as I distro-hop - it'll save time for apps like browsers and it'll help keep some apps like Bitwarden up to date (both of which I prefer to have installed natively due to native host messaging still borked on flatpak).

I hope that more third party projects lands on pacstall and deb-get because having a script that can install and update these things makes my live so much simpler.
illwieckz Aug 30, 2022
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: illwieckz
Quoting: darkoverlordofdataThis has the benefit of adding (in this case) vscode to apt's automated update cycle.

Only because this particular `.deb` file sets up a repository and a key in your back, allowing Microsoft to replace every file on your distro in your back and have full control to be your own computer sysadmin (Yes that's also a problem PPA have too).

Any program installing this `.deb` file, being `apt` or something else (`dpkg`, `gdebi`, whatever…) will set the repository and the key to give full package and file replacement permission to Microsoft, because those permissions are set up by the package itself, not `apt` or any program installing the `.deb` file.
So do you mean Microsoft in specific or just anyone in general, Microsoft just being an appropriately annoying example? Because I'm not seeing what this would have to do with Microsoft specifically.

Anyone in general. I was talking about Microsoft because I responded to a comment using vscode as an example. But PPAs in general are bad: every maintainer of a PPA you add to your system is actually root on your machine. Adding a PPA requires the same precautions as when hiring a sysadmin or contracting a maintenance enterprise: they will be root on your machine and you would have to trust them. On every `apt-get upgrade` a PPA maintainer can add a piece of code to your system to delete, exfiltrate or encrypt all your data, steal your passwords and certificates, impersonate you, open backdoors, etc.

Installing a distro requires the same trust, but at least you can evaluate the distro once for all as a whole (like trusting a IT company to maintain your IT). PPAs require to re-evaluate the trust anytime one is added.
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