This is still useful if the package(s) you want are not part of an apt repository, but otherwise, I recommend this: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 7&t=101123
This was done with the aim of installing Wine, but will also work for any other deb that you would download, such as Skype or Google Chrome, without going through dependency hell (unless none of your sources have the required dependency...).
I installed LMDE, did the huge update, and switched to the Cinnamon shell (2012/04/10). Everything seemed to work well and I had no qualms about using cinnamon instead of Gnome2, so the next day I decided I wanted to get Wine... Turns out that's a hard thing to find in Debian (Doesn't exist in repo and the instructions I've seen link to old packages or don't work well). So after poking around for awhile trying to find seamless solutions, I came up with an idea: create a local repository so package management can figure out dependencies. Here's how to do it.
===Installing Wine using a Local Repository===
1. In your Downloads folder create a folder called local_repo, the full path of which should be /home/username/Downloads/local_repo (Shorthanded as $repo) (if the path has any spaces it will break, but might be correctable with "\"s later)
2. Grab latest debs of wine and wine-gecko for your arch from http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/repo/pool/main/w/ OR http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/w/ (Wine 1.4 OR 1.5) and put them in $repo
3. Go to your $repo directory and create a file called "scan.sh" paste into it this command "dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null | gzip -9c > Packages.gz".
----Right click the file, go to Properties, and check "Allow executing file as program". Now run the file by double clicking it.
4. Open a terminal and enter in "sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list" (If this doesn't work try the other editors listed in notes) (for the "Is not a directory" problem... We're working on that...)
----On a newline add "deb file:/home/username/Downloads/local_repo /" (replace with the exact path you used)
5. Update/Reload your package manager (eg "sudo apt-get update")
6. Install Wine through a package manager (eg "sudo apt-get install wine")
===Example (YES IT IS VERBOSE-ish)===
I created /home/damian/Downloads/wine_repo/
Opened Firefox, went to http://main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/w/, downloaded wine-gecko/wine-gecko_1.5.0-1mcr110+1_all.deb and wine/wine_1.5.2-1mcr110+1_amd64.deb, place them in wine_repo
Created a document called scan.sh inside wine_repo/ and entered into it "dpkg-scanpackages . /dev/null | gzip -9c > Packages.gz" and executed it. (not sure if I had to mark as executable)
Pressed Alt+F2, typed "gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list", entered password, added in "deb file:/home/damian/Downloads/wine_repo /" to get
Code: Select all
deb http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/linuxmint-packages/ debian main upstream import
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest testing main non-free contrib
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/security testing/updates main non-free contrib
deb http://debian.linuxmint.com/latest/multimedia testing main non-free
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/freefilesync/ffs-debian/ubuntu oneiric main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/freenx-team/ppa/ubuntu lucid main
deb file:/home/damian/Downloads/wine_repo /
Installed Notepad++ (irrelevant...)
Tried running the Windows version of Xonotic and a couple other games, but they didn't work because they are 32bit, so I researched and found that for the PROPRIETARY NVIDIA driver (other drivers may need something similar) you need to install libgl1-nvidia-glx-ia32. Some games magically started working, even part of Crysis (crashes after the plane intro).
===Notes===
-According to http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=61825 MEPIS isn't too different from Debian package wise.
-You may not have gedit on your computer, if it says you don't have it, try these "pluma, leafpad, kwrite, kate, nano, joe"
-$repo can also be used for other debs you may want to install to take advantage of dependency handling. If you do this often enough, you may want to put the scanning command into an sh file, so you can run it quickly.
-Avoid having multiple packages of the same version but for different distro versions and/or architectures in the repo (pkg_version-dist_arch.deb), when I had the i386 and amd64 packages of wine_1.5.1 for MEPIS 8.0, 8.5, and 11.0 in the repo at the same time, it only listed the i386/11.0 version in the Packages.gz file. Will have to test multiple versions of the same package sometime to see if those work.
-Avoid automatically installing the suggested/recommended packages since this will install a lot of unnecessary kde stuff if it doesn't find gnome-exe-thumbnailer. (I'm assuming the qt/kde libs include some kind of exe thumbnailer since it's listed as a fallback)
-For users of the proprietary nVidia driver (Other drivers may need 32bit compatibility libraries installed as well): Since Wine doesn't support 64bit fully you have to install "libgl1-nvidia-glx-ia32" so that 32bit programs that utilize 3d don't crash. (I might be wrong about the reason, but the solution to crashing works)
-winehq.org recommends using http://dev.carbon-project.org/debian/wine-unstable/ on debian installs, but its a little annoying because it splits Wine up into many packages and doesn't provide wine-gecko. I tried installing it through the "dpkg -i *; apt-get -f install" method, but it didn't work and I don't like the fact that the packages are temporarily broken. It seemed to install successfully with my local repo method, but I didn't bother to test it.