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Debian Package Categories
- main: The official Debian archive. Other package categories are distributed through Debian repositories for convenience but are not considered "official."
- contrib: Packages in this area are freely licensed by the copyright holder but depend on other software that is not free.
- non-free: Packages in this area have some onerous license condition restricting use or redistribution of the software.
- restricted: License terms of packages here completely conflict with Debian licensing. Some packages may not be legal in some jurisdictions. This comes from the Debian unofficial site.
- deb: Debian binaries. Simply download and auto-install them with apt-get, aptitude, or a GUI-like synaptic, or download manually and install with dpkg.
- deb-src: Debian source. These are the source code versions repackaged for the convenience of Debian users instead of as regular tarballs. You have to build them, not install them. That’s outside the scope of this initial tutorial, but the Debian website gives more information on this.