1deb-old(5) dpkg suite deb-old(5)
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6 deb-old - old style Debian binary package format
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9 filename.deb
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12 The .deb format is the Debian binary package file format. This manual
13 page describes the old format, used before Debian 0.93. Please see
14 deb(5) for details of the new format.
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17 The file is two lines of format information as ASCII text, followed by
18 two concatenated gzipped ustar files.
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20 The first line is the format version number padded to 8 digits, and is
21 0.939000 for all old-format archives.
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23 The second line is a decimal string (without leading zeroes) giving the
24 length of the first gzipped tarfile.
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26 Each of these lines is terminated with a single newline character.
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28 The first tarfile contains the control information, as a series of
29 ordinary files. The file control must be present, as it contains the
30 core control information.
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32 In some very old archives, the files in the control tarfile may
33 optionally be in a DEBIAN subdirectory. In that case, the DEBIAN
34 subdirectory will be in the control tarfile too, and the control
35 tarfile will have only files in that directory. Optionally the control
36 tarfile may contain an entry for ‘.’, that is, the current directory.
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38 The second gzipped tarfile is the filesystem archive, containing
39 pathnames relative to the root directory of the system to be installed
40 on. The pathnames do not have leading slashes.
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43 deb(5), dpkg-deb(1), deb-control(5).
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471.21.9 2022-07-01 deb-old(5)