Do Dpkg and apt-get install dependencies?

Question

I've been wondering, is there a way to tell dpkg or apt-get that when I want to install a package also install all the dependencies it requires? I installed a package using dpkg but it complained about some dependency issues so I had to manually search one by one, is there a better way to do this?

dpkg does not handle dependencies, it's a low level package management tool. — João Pinto, Jan 04 '11 at 17:23

score 12 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 04 '11 at 16:34

apt-get or aptitude will install all the dependencies of a package. According to apt-get man page

All packages required by the package(s) specified for installation will also be retrieved and installed.

Even if you want to install a package from source you can install its build dependencies using apt-get. Use apt-get build-dep for that purpose. Again from apt-get man page:

build-dep causes apt-get to install/remove packages in an attempt to satisfy the build dependencies for a source package.

For example if you want to compile gcc you will need all the build dependencies for successfully compiling gcc. So you use sudo apt-get build-dep gcc. This will install all the packages required to build gcc from source.

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

10

Dependencies should be installed by default with apt-get. You might also want to read the answers for this question: Installing suggested/recommended packages?.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

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answered Jan 04 '11 at 16:23

Olivier Lalonde

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And if it doesn't?! I run this command: "apt-get install --no-install-recommends ubuntu-desktop, And it says The foloowing packages have unmet dependencies: checkbox-qt, eog,gedit,....... too many packages. – Dr.jacky Sep 30 '15 at 05:32

score 8 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 08 '12 at 14:36

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If after using dpkg to install a package it tells you that there are missing dependencies, you can run apt-get -f install to install any missing dependencies on your system.

edited Feb 08 '12 at 14:36

Michael Martin-Smucker

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answered Feb 04 '12 at 16:07

AdamG

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score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 08 '12 at 14:43

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If you're looking for a tool that will install a downloaded (ie. non-repository based) package including dependencies, look at gdebi (the GTK UI) or gedebi-core (the command line tool).

answered Feb 08 '12 at 14:43

detly

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Do Dpkg and apt-get install dependencies?

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