Is there an apt command to download a deb file from the repositories to the current directory?

I am often interested in the installation triggers (postinst, postrm) or certain parts of packages (like /usr/share and /etc). Currently, I am running the next command to retrieve the source code:

apt-get source [package-name]

The downside is, this file is often much bigger than the binary package and does not reflect the installation tree.

Right now, I am downloading the packages through http://packages.ubuntu.com/:

Search for [package-name]
Select the package
Click on amd64/i386 for download
Download the actual file

This takes too long for me and as someone who really likes the shell, I would like to do something like the next (imaginary) command:

apt-get get-deb-file [package-name]

I could not find something like this in the apt-get manual page. The most close I found was the --download-only switch, but this puts the package in /var/cache/apt/archives (which requires root permissions) and not in the current directory.

Solution 1:

You can use the download sub-command of apt, apt-get or aptitude. For example, if $PKG is the package you want, any of these will do:

apt-get download $PKG
apt download $PKG
aptitude download $PKG

This doesn't require root privileges. The same can also be approximated using apt-get and wget:

wget $(apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $PKG | cut -d"'" -f2)

This will, however, fetch all packages required to install the package, so you can attempt to limit it instead:

wget $(apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $PKG | cut -d"'" -f2 | grep "/${PKG}_")

You can also put a wget line into a function, to be able to use it as a command apt-download with the package name as a parameter:

function apt-download { wget -c $(apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $1 | cut -d"'" -f2); }

Note the modifications: The $PKG is replaced with $1 and the -c parameter enables continuing interrupted downloads.

Solution 2:

sudo apt-get -o dir::cache::archives="/path/to/folder/" -d install package

Note:

You need to create an folder named partial in destination folder.

Solution 3:

In Ubuntu 14.04 (apt package version 1.0.1ubuntu2, I believe), apt-get includes the download command to download the given package as a .deb in the current directory.

For example, suppose we want to download the file manager Ranger:

$ apt-get download ranger

Results in:

$ ls . | grep ranger
ranger_1.6.0-1_all.deb

Solution 4:

If you want to download all deb packages from a list, you can do this:

cat path/to/text/file.txt | xargs apt-get install --reinstall --print-uris -qq $PKG | cut -d"'" -f2 | xargs wget

Just put one package name per line. Like in a requirements.txt file. For example, with contents like this:

apache2-mpm-event
curl
dmidecode
ethtool
libapache2-mod-wsgi
libapache2-mod-python

Hope this helps. ;)

Solution 5:

sudo apt-get install devscripts

dget [package-name]