how to install bitcoin-qt wallet on debian 7

Question

WARNING: Complete noob to linux (somewhat noob - if something can be installed w/ a package manager, I'm ok, else completely lost). I loaded debian 7 on a VBox VM (took 2 days to get everything to run correctly, but cool now) and just want to put a BitCoin wallet on, so I went to the bitcoin site and downloaded the wallet. Unfortunately, there is no install package, just a bin and src directory. I figured the bin was the correct place to look and found a directory named "32" under that. In that directory, I see bitcoind and bitcoin-qt. Found out I needed PPA to install this, so I came up with (in a terminal):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin

ran the command, seemed to work. then ran

sudo apt-get update

but discovered some files apparently are no longer on the site it's pulling stuff from:

Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy Release.gpg
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy-updates Release.gpg                        
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy Release                                    
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy-updates Release                            
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy/main Sources                               
Hit http://security.debian.org wheezy/updates Release.gpg            
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy/main i386 Packages
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net wheezy Release.gpg                      
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy/main Translation-en              
Hit http://security.debian.org wheezy/updates Release                
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy-updates/main Sources             
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy-updates/main i386 Packages/DiffIndex
Hit http://security.debian.org wheezy/updates/main Sources           
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org wheezy-updates/main Translation-en/DiffIndex
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net wheezy Release    
Hit http://security.debian.org wheezy/updates/main i386 Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org wheezy/updates/main Translation-en
Err http://ppa.launchpad.net wheezy/main Sources
  404  Not Found
Err http://ppa.launchpad.net wheezy/main i386 Packages
  404  Not Found
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net wheezy/main Translation-en_US
Ign http://ppa.launchpad.net wheezy/main Translation-en
W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/bitcoin/bitcoin/ubuntu/dists/wheezy/main/source/Sources  404  Not Found

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/bitcoin/bitcoin/ubuntu/dists/wheezy/main/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found

E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Naturally, because of errors above, the installation fails.

 sudo apt-get install bitcoin-qt

results in:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package bitcoin-qt

Being a noob, I have no clue as to where it is looking for the bitcoin-qt file, so I tried the same command in the directory the file was in that I downloaded it to, same error. I know I'm doing something completely wrong here, but have no idea how to proceed. (sorry, spoiled by win/mac 2-click installations!)

Solution 1

Here is what I did on Debian Wheezy.

• Create /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bitcoin.list with content

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bitcoin/bitcoin/ubuntu precise main

• Import this repository PGP public key with

apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys D46F45428842CE5E

• Create (temporarily) /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-squeeze.list with content

deb http://ftp.ch.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main

• Run aptitude update and

aptitude install libdb4.8++-dev=4.8.30-2 libdb4.8++=4.8.30-2 \
   libdb4.8-dev=4.8.30-2

• Disable squeeze repository again with

mv /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-squeeze.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-squeeze.list.bak
aptitude update

• In an empty folder, get package sources with apt-get source bitcoin-qt

• Edit bitcoin-0.9.0/debian/control to remove libminiupnpc8-dev from Build-Depends

• Install any lacking dependencies to build the package, for example:

aptitude install libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-test-dev
aptitude install libboost-program-options-dev libboost-thread-dev libqt4-dev
aptitude install libqrencode-dev libprotobuf-dev protobuf-compiler devscripts

• After cd bitcoin-0.9.0, invoke dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot

• When over, install with dpkg -i ../bitcoin-qt_0.9.0-precise1_amd64.deb (in case of amd64 system) so you can now run bitcoin-qt

Remark: libdb4.8 is obsolete in Debian Wheezy but it is a requirement to work with portable Bitcoin wallet. The easiest way was to get binary packages from Squeeze.

Solution 2

Okay, for all the noobs out there pulling their hair out, here's how you do it. Turns out, after much experimenting, Mint Linux is the only distro I could find that seems to be relatively small, relatively fast & works great (for me, that it). Starting w/Mint & after all updates - open a terminal & type the following in order:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bitcoin/bitcoin
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install bitcoin-qt

Once complete, close your terminal & go to the menu: Office --> Bitcoin.

Very simple! Works like a charm!

Solution 3

Add below line to /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian sid main 

Then

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install bitcoind

Comments

[174140]

As a side note, take into account that the building of the bitcoin source code in debian 7 is currently broken.

[MC9000]

ok - Should I just blow away the Debian and go to Ubuntu? It's a VirtualBox VM, so it's not a big deal.

[174140]

Maybe you are running a Microsoft host and would be just OK running the wallet from the host. Maybe more trust should be put in Debian rather than in bitcoin. Who knows?

[174140]

Anyway bitcoin builds in Ubuntu far better than in Debian, by a surprisingly large distance. But this is just for today.

[Ramhound]

@uprego - There are very specific security reasons having your wallet within a linux virtual machine is a valid decision. That really isn't a valid solution, if building is currently broken, and there simply not being a solution on debian ( except to fix the build process yourself ) is an entirely valid answer to this question. Using Windows instead not so much.

[174140]

100% roger that, but am not really sure of the availability of a precompiled package, just know about the source build, hence commenting instead of answering. I saw it [bitcoin] listed once upon a time in a wheezy installation's aptitude, but when using bitcoin from GNU/Linux I would recommend sticking heavily to the source code, as a personal opinion.

[174140]

If you have no other software constraints, giving the current difference of available support for one or another platform, your pragmatic solution is going Ubuntu. But considering the frequency of protocol changes and forced upgrades over four years, and the actual maintenance of Ubuntu and Debian package repositories, I don't think it is a good idea to rely the deb packaging system for having this software up to date.

[ZakW]

If you're only after a bitcoind with no GUI nor wallet support, with tweaks to bitcoin-0.9.0/debian/rules you can omit the squeeze/libdb* part and the libqt4-dev/libqrencode-dev dependencies by editing debian/rules, changing ./configure to ./configure --disable-wallet --with-gui=no and removing the first line (usr/local/bin/bitcoin-qt usr/bin) from bitcoin-0.9.0/debian/bitcoin-qt.install (a tiny useless bitcoin-qt_0.9.0_i386.deb will still be built, but can be ignored).

[Alex]

Debian-Wheezy here: W: Fehlschlag beim Holen von ppa.launchpad.net/bitcoin/bitcoin/ubuntu/dists/wheezy/main/… 404 Not Found ... etc

[appleLover]

who knew it was so easy?

[Yves Martin]

Question is about "bitcoin-qt". So why do you answer about "bitcoind" and "--without-gui" ?

[Yves Martin]

That is a procedure "the Debian way", so without polluting system with raw files copy in /usr/local, but with a clean Debian package build and installation (so that uninstallation is easy and clean)

[jcoffland]

This is a very bad idea. It's a good way to create package installation problems down the road. Never, add package sources for other distributions unless you want to bork your system. What will happen is you will encounter unresolvable dependency problems down the road when you try to update your system. You would be much better off building from source and then using checkinstall to create a package.

[jcoffland]

This is the right way to do it but instead of running make install, install and run checkinstall.

[Yves Martin]

I disagree. I do not propose to install a Ubuntu binary package into a Debian. On the contrary, I use the only "dpkg" source package available and build it from "sources" with Debian tool chain (configure and make are invoked by dpkg-buildpackage !). Dependencies are checked at compilation and the only impact may be a non functional application, no issue for the system itself. With the benefits that uninstall or upgrade let the system clean.

[Yves Martin]

The libdb4.8 is considered as obselete in recent Debian. Get it back from squeeze should have no impact for wheezy applications. But you're right I may get it built from sources too.