Making Arch Linux Ultimate: Installing Debian Packages Using debtap

Arch Linux rarely has issues with tool installation, as it offers the official Arch repositories along with the AUR.

Furthermore, by installing Snap—which is commonly used in Ubuntu and other distributions—you can install most GUI applications. (Though there used to be issues like being unable to input Japanese with Snap.)

However, in rare cases, a tool might be distributed only as a Debian package, not through any of the above methods.

In my recent experience, Zoho Notebook was one such example.

https://www.zoho.com/jp/notebook/

In such cases, let's use debtap.
Using debtap allows you to convert Debian packages into Arch Linux packages for installation.

https://github.com/helixarch/debtap

Usage

Reading the README on GitHub is the most accurate way to learn, so I will only explain the overview.

debtap is registered in the AUR, so you can install it using an AUR helper.

yay -S debtap

After installation, you first need to run the setup command for debtap with root privileges.

sudo debtap -u

From here, you begin the process of actually converting the Debian file into an Arch package file and installing it.

# Root privileges are not required here
# Once complete, a .zst file will be created
debtap xxx.debian

# Install the generated package using pacman
sudo pacman -U xxx.zst

Thoughts

This is the ultimate setup!!!