this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Linux
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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My friend, when you install something using the apt package manager you are using a .deb file. It's something getting downloaded in the background from a server (debian.org or the brave one in this case) without you realising it. Make sense?
My brother in Christ, installing a .deb is downloading the .deb directly, as you would when downloading discord from discord.com, and you use dpkg to install it (apt uses dpkg to install the deb file).
You saying “the deb file” is not the same as “using the official repo”, as dependencies might not have been installed by only using the .deb file.
Make sense?
yes, but you missed an essential step of the process: apt handles dependencies for you. maybe not in this case, but installing .debs directly requires installing dependencies manually and it's not uncommon for people to forget about this and then saying that the program does not work.
installing from an apt repo is always better as long as the repo is trusted (and it should be if you're installing .debs from it anyway) because it handles dependencies and updates automatically. If you just install the .deb, you'll have to repeat the process per each update.