Edit: starting with version 3.0.0, direct use of the PPA on Debian is no longer an option. If you have such as setup, remove the PPA from your sources.list and go with on of the other options instead.
Edit: since early 2023, there are official backports for bullseye (11.x) and newer. See the first option in the list just below for details.
Anyway, these are your options for fresh new sabnzbd versions:
- Check debian.org for an official backport for your Debian release. If there is one, read the instructions on using backports (don't forget to enable "contrib" in addition to "main"). This option is quick and safe, and supports automatic updates whenever new versions hit the backports repository.
- Create a private backport by rebuilding the source package from the Ubuntu PPA. The Debian wiki has instructions detailing how to pull that off, do apply some common sense though. This method avoids installing from repositories not native to your system, but needs to be done by hand for every update. On the upside, the PPA-provided packages are designed to work with older OS releases, so you typically won't need to make changes to the packaging to get your backport to work if you work with source packages from the closest equivalent Ubuntu release. For jessie (8.x) that's trusty/14.04; for stretch (9.x) go with xenial/16.04; for buster (10.x) go with bionic/18.04; for bullseye (11.x) go with focal/20.04; for anything more recent (bookworm/testing/unstable), try jammy/22.04. On occasion, you may need to backport additional packages such as sabyenc; if so, these are typically also available on the PPA as they would be required on the relevant Ubuntu release as well.
- Run the program in docker instead. See the relevant section at https://sabnzbd.org/wiki/installation/install-unix.
- Create a backport from the official Debian repositories: testing, unstable, or experimental. Instructions straight from the Debian wiki are here. This method also avoids installing from repositories not native to your system, needs to be done by hand for every update and may not work without additional packaging changes. The chance you have to make modifications increases with increasing age difference between whatever Debian release you use and the one currently in development.
- Apt pinning, basically a somewhat intelligent way of installing packages from later Debian releases (testing, unstable, or even experimental; packages.debian.org has an overview of what's available from where). Required reading on the Debian wiki and in the excellent apt_preferences manpage. Some examples, tips and tricks may be found in this discussion.
- Run from source. Download the source release from github, extract anywhere you like, and run SABnzbd.py. Dependencies should have been taken care of if you had the (old) sabnzbdplus package installed, otherwise look at that for guidance or install them with pip. You'll have to take care of things like changes in dependencies and a proper init script yourself (a systemd service file example is included in the release).
- No warranty. For anything, in this post or linked from here.
- For major version updates (like 0.6.x to 0.7.x), better finish any existing download queue first and backup your settings.
- Don't get too excited about using just any PPA on Debian: doing so is likely to cause breakage. Just remember this one as an exception, not the rule.
- Whatever you do, don't grab the deb files directly from testing or unstable: these will not work.
- Ubuntu users: why are you reading this? Go here instead.
