NAME

       deb-old - old style Debian binary package format

SYNOPSIS

       filename.deb

DESCRIPTION

       The  .deb  format is the Debian binary package file format. This manual page describes the
       old format, used before Debian 0.93. Please see deb(5) for details of the new format.

FORMAT

       The file is two lines of format information as ASCII text, followed  by  two  concatenated
       gzipped ustar files.

       The  first  line  is the format version number padded to 8 digits, and is 0.939000 for all
       old-format archives.

       The second line is a decimal string (without leading zeroes)  giving  the  length  of  the
       first gzipped tarfile.

       Each of these lines is terminated with a single newline character.

       The  first  tarfile  contains  the control information, as a series of ordinary files. The
       file control must be present, as it contains the core control information.

       In some very old archives, the files in the control tarfile may optionally be in a  DEBIAN
       subdirectory.  In  that  case, the DEBIAN subdirectory will be in the control tarfile too,
       and the control tarfile will have only files in that  directory.  Optionally  the  control
       tarfile may contain an entry for ‘.’, that is, the current directory.

       The second gzipped tarfile is the filesystem archive, containing pathnames relative to the
       root directory of the system to be  installed  on.  The  pathnames  do  not  have  leading
       slashes.

SEE ALSO

       deb(5), dpkg-deb(1), deb-control(5).