How To Install lintian on Debian 10

Learn how to install lintian on Debian 10 with this tutorial. lintian is Debian package checker

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install lintian on Debian 10.

What is lintian

lintian is:

Lintian dissects Debian packages and reports bugs and policy violations. It contains automated checks for many aspects of Debian policy as well as some checks for common errors.

It uses an archive directory, called a “laboratory”, in which it stores information about the packages it examines. It can keep this information between multiple invocations in order to avoid repeating expensive data-collection operations. This makes it possible to check the complete Debian archive for bugs, in a reasonable time.

This package is useful for all people who want to check Debian packages for compliance with Debian policy. Every Debian maintainer should check packages with this tool before uploading them to the archive.

This version of Lintian is calibrated for policy version 4.3.0.

There are three methods to install lintian on Debian 10. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install lintian Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install lintian using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install lintian

Install lintian Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install lintian using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install lintian

Install lintian Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Debian. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install lintian using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install lintian

How To Uninstall lintian on Debian 10

To uninstall only the lintian package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove lintian

Uninstall lintian And Its Dependencies

To uninstall lintian and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Debian 10, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove lintian

Remove lintian Configurations and Data

To remove lintian configuration and data from Debian 10 we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge lintian

Remove lintian configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove lintian configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge lintian

Dependencies

lintian have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install lintian package on Debian 10 using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.