Cobber Linux Repository Information

Cobber’s repository is being built. I am using reprepro to do this and it is being hosted on sourceforge which has mirrors around the world including 1 in Australia (Adelaide I think). I have also contacted various other hosts and I am waiting for their replies. If anyone knows a host in Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea (even in any of the Pacific Island nations) please let me know.

This post is to help you access Cobber’s repository and when it is up and running, in the next few days, you’ll be able to use Cobber’s repo to “Cobberise” your Debian installs. I have made a FAQ and will add to it as time goes by so if you have any questions that are not already here please ask them and I’ll answer them either in the post, if it belongs in the post, or in a reply below the post.

What is contained in Cobber’s repository?
Cobber’s repository has packages from various other repositories, updated daily if need be, such as MATE Desktop Environment, SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), Liquorix Kernel, Deb-Multimedia, and of course native Cobber packages. If you know of a repository that would suit Cobber please let me know and I’ll consider it.

Why have you done it this way?
Well sources.lists can get really untidy and unwieldy if there are alot of entries in it. By doing Cobber’s repository this way Cobber users have the normal Debian repositories listed but also just one more which is Cobber.

How is Cobber’s repository setup?
Cobber’s repository is setup with a main, community/main, community/non-free, backports/community/main, backports/community/non-free, archive/community/main (where old packages will be stored for historical purposes), development/community/main (where new untested packages will be placed for people who wish to test development releases). Everything in community and development is upstream and can change from one version to another so watching what you are updating is, as always with any operating system, advisable.

What do I need to do to use Cobber’s repository?
First you need to add the gpg key to your system so it recognises Cobber as friendly. Then you need to add at least one, more depending on what you want, entries to your sources.list
You can do this by opening a terminal (as root) and copy/paste or type this command.

wget -O – -q http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/cobber.gpg.key |apt-key add –

Once you have done that add Cobber to your sources.list by copy/pasting or typing this in your sources.list file
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ [dists] main

You will need to change [dists] to suit the version of Cobber (or Debian) you are using, the current versions are stable2013 (uluru2013), testing (maralinga), unstable (canberra), and experimental. So as a minimum your sources.list entry will look something like this
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ stable2013 main

If you want to add community it will look like this
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ [dists] main community/main

If you want to add non-free it will look like this
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ [dists] main community/main community/non-free

If you want more up to date software but still use stable2013 (uluru2013) it will look like this (n.b. backports are sometimes not complete, they are provided for you to use but you do so understanding this fact).

deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ stable2013 main community/main community/non-free
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ stable2013 main backports/community/main backports/community/non-free

If you are brave and want to help test development packages (when they are available) it will look like this
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ testing main community/main community/non-free
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ experimental main development/community/main development/community/non-free

or

deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ unstable main community/main community/non-free
deb http://sourceforge.net/projects/cobberlinux/files/cobber/ experimental main development/community/main development/community/non-free

What versions of Debian do the Cobber dists correspond with?
Excellent question, Stable2013 (Uluru2013) is based on Debian Wheezy, Testing (Maralinga) is based on Debian Testing (which is currently Jessie), Unstable (Canberra) is based on Debian Unstable (also called Sid) and Experimental is based on Debian Experimental.

When Debian Jessie is released as Debian 8 (Stable) Cobber Uluru will become uluru2015 (if Jessie is released in 2015). Maralinga will always be based on Testing and Canberra will always be based on Sid.

Will Cobber’s repository have all packages available from these other repositories?
From MATE and SIL yes, from Deb-Multimedia and Liquorix no. Do I here you ask why?

Well until MATE is fully eccepted into Debian I feel it is a good idea to mirror the full MATE repository so Cobber users don’t have problems with dependency issues.

I like SIL and believe they have good usuable software so I want to include it in Cobber’s repository.

Deb-Multimedia has a massive amount of software but most of it is already available in Debian so my intent is to only offer packages that are 1. not available in Debian, and 2. actually going to be used more than equivalent Debian packages.

Liquorix is a great kernel so I will be offering that but I’m not sure offering the full Liquorix repo is warranted. It’s a bit like Deb-Multimedia in a way some packages are already in Debian and do a really good job already. I just want simple with no dependency issues and to avoid double ups as much as possible.

I have a University assignment to finish off, by midnight tommorow, so I will let my update script do its work and after my assignment is out of the way I will get back into making iso images of Cobber using MATE and XFCE initially and upload them for downloading. I will make a new announcement when they are ready.