man > debi(1)

DEBI(1)                                General Commands Manual                               DEBI(1)

NAME
       debi - install current version of generated Debian package

SYNOPSIS
       debi [options] [changes file] [package ...]

DESCRIPTION
       debi  figures  out  the  current version of a package and installs it.  If a .changes file is
       specified on the command line, the filename must end with .changes, as this is how  the  pro‐
       gram distinguishes it from package names.  If not, then debi has to be called from within the
       source  code  directory tree.  In this case, it will look for the .changes file corresponding
       to the current package  version  (by  determining  the  name  and  version  number  from  the
       changelog,  and the architecture in the same way as dpkg-buildpackage(1) does).  It then runs
       dpkg -i on every .deb archive listed in the .changes file to install them, assuming that  all
       of the .deb archives live in the same directory as the .changes file.  Note that you probably
       don't  want to run this program on a .changes file relating to a different architecture after
       cross-compiling the package!

       If a list of packages is given on the command line, then only those debs with names  in  this
       list of packages will be installed.

       Since installing a package requires root privileges, debi will only be useful if it is either
       being run as root or dpkg can be run as root.

Directory name checking
       In common with several other scripts in the devscripts package, debi will climb the directory
       tree  until it finds a debian/changelog file.  As a safeguard against stray files causing po‐
       tential problems, it will examine the name of the parent directory  once  it  finds  the  de‐
       bian/changelog file, and check that the directory name corresponds to the package name.  Pre‐
       cisely   how   it   does   this  is  controlled  by  two  configuration  file  variables  DE‐
       VSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL and DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX, and their corresponding com‐
       mand-line options --check-dirname-level and --check-dirname-regex.

       DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL can take the following values:

       0      Never check the directory name.

       1      Only check the directory name if we have had to change directory in our search for de‐
              bian/changelog.  This is the default behaviour.

       2      Always check the directory name.

       The directory name is checked by testing whether the current directory name (as determined by
       pwd(1))   matches   the   regex   given   by    the    configuration    file    option    DE‐
       VSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX or by the command line option --check-dirname-regex regex.  Here
       regex  is  a  Perl regex (see perlre(3perl)), which will be anchored at the beginning and the
       end.  If regex contains a '/', then it must match the full directory path.  If not,  then  it
       must match the full directory name.  If regex contains the string ´PACKAGE', this will be re‐
       placed  by  the source package name, as determined from the changelog.  The default value for
       the regex is: ´PACKAGE(-.+)?', thus matching directory names such as PACKAGE and PACKAGE-ver‐
       sion.

OPTIONS
       -adebian-architecture, -tGNU-system-type
              See dpkg-architecture(1) for a description of these options.  They affect  the  search
              for  the .changes file.  They are provided to mimic the behaviour of dpkg-buildpackage
              when determining the name of the .changes file.

       --debs-dir directory
              Look for the .changes and .deb files in directory instead of the parent of the  source
              directory.   This  should  either  be  an  absolute path or relative to the top of the
              source directory.

       -m, --multi
              Search for a multiarch .changes file, as created by dpkg-cross.

       -u, --upgrade
              Only upgrade packages already installed on the  system,  rather  than  installing  all
              packages listed in the .changes file.  Useful for multi-binary packages when you don't
              want to have all the binaries installed at once.

       --check-dirname-level N
              See the above section Directory name checking for an explanation of this option.

       --check-dirname-regex regex
              See the above section Directory name checking for an explanation of this option.

       --with-depends
              Attempt to satisfy the Depends of a package when installing it.

       --tool tool
              Use  the  specified  tool  for installing the dependencies of the package(s) to be in‐
              stalled.  By default, apt-get is used.

       --no-conf, --noconf
              Do not read any configuration files.  This can only be used as the first option  given
              on the command-line.

       --help, --version
              Show help message and version information respectively.

CONFIGURATION VARIABLES
       The  two configuration files /etc/devscripts.conf and ~/.devscripts are sourced in that order
       to set configuration variables.  Command line options can be used to  override  configuration
       file  settings.   Environment  variable settings are ignored for this purpose.  The currently
       recognised variables are:

       DEBRELEASE_DEBS_DIR
              This specifies the directory in which to look for the .changes and .deb files, and  is
              either  an  absolute path or relative to the top of the source tree.  This corresponds
              to the --debs-dir command line option.  This directive could be used, for example,  if
              you always use pbuilder or svn-buildpackage to build your packages.  Note that it also
              affects debrelease(1) in the same way, hence the strange name of the option.

       DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_LEVEL, DEVSCRIPTS_CHECK_DIRNAME_REGEX
              See  the  above section Directory name checking for an explanation of these variables.
              Note that these are package-wide configuration variables, and  will  therefore  affect
              all  devscripts scripts which check their value, as described in their respective man‐
              pages and in devscripts.conf(5).

SEE ALSO
       devscripts.conf(5)

AUTHOR
       debi was originally written by  Christoph  Lameter  <clameter AT debian.org>.   The  now-defunct
       script  debit  was originally written by James R. Van Zandt <jrv AT vanzandt.com>.  They have
       been moulded into one script together with debc(1) and parts extensively modified  by  Julian
       Gilbey <jdg AT debian.org>.

DEBIAN                                    Debian Utilities                                   DEBI(1)