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I have a friend who has installed Debian from home burned CDs. But when we try to apt-get new packages (eg. Audacity, Emacs) his installation doesn't recognise them ("not available from this source")

It feels like he's lost the main Debian repository from his sources. In /etc/apt/sources.list he only has 

deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates contrib main

# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
# A network mirror was not selected during install. The following entries
# are provided as examples, but you should amend them as appropriate
# for your mirror of choice.

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main contrib

Do these include the main Debian repository? Or just the "updates"? For example, a package calld audactiy-data is visible but not audacity itself.

If so, how can we add the main repository again? What's its address?

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  • Unless you intend to download and rebuild source packages, comment out all deb-src lines. You can always uncomment them if/when you need to rebuild a package. I use these aliases: alias apt-source-on='sed -i -e "s/^#\(deb-src\)/\1/" /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*' and alias apt-source-off='sed -i -e "s/^\(deb-src\)/#\1/" /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*' in my root shell. add sudo before the seds if you want to run them as a non-root user. Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 17:50

2 Answers 2

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I have had this problem so many times I 'wrote it down'

# tested works
# jessie updates
deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
deb http://mirror.cogentco.com/debian/ jessie main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates main contrib non-free
# source list
deb-src http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/jessie/updates main contrib non-free
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5
  • Don't forget to sudo apt-get update after adding these to sources.list Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:09
  • super fast debian (and others) mirror Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:17
  • It might be "super fast" from whereever you are, but it won't be from everywhere (it looks like it's on the wrong side of the atlantic ocean for me = quite slow compared to numerous other mirrors), so please don't make that kind of statement without qualification. Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:32
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    He don't need to add non free repo to install Emac and Audacity , It can be installed following the answer of @Stephen Harris Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:37
  • Thanks .. exactly what we needed. Any idea why we don't get something working as a default? Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:38
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You only have the updates listed.

The base repo you're missing is at

deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib
deb-src http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ jessie main contrib
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  • Any idea how / why we didn't have these main repos? Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:38
  • If he installed from a local CD then it might have had a 'local CD' entry that your friend removed after it started causing errors when the CD wasn't available. Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:40
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    The answer is in your sources.list = A network mirror was not selected during install Commented Jul 21, 2016 at 20:43

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