Can I download a file from a package without installing it?

Question

If I want, for example, /usr/share/doc/nvidia-96/README.txt.gz from nvidia-96, is there a way for me to download just this file?

Answer 1

Yes, you can download the .deb file from packages.ubuntu.com and then open it like an archive (using file-roller). There are two more archives inside, you'll need to open "data.tar.gz".

Answer 2

If you don't want to use the graphical file-roller as suggested in another answer, there are some other options:

• Install the debian-goodies package, and run debmany nvidia-96; this will present a dialog of documentation files in the package, and you can press Enter to view any one of them.
• (Lower-level:) Download the .deb file using whatever method you prefer, and run dpkg --fsys-tarfile foo.deb | tar xO ./usr/share/doc/nvidia-96/README.txt.gz (the leading dot after tar xO is required).

Answer 3

you can do sudo apt-get -d install nvidia-96 to download package without installation

Answer 4

Another alternative:

sudo aptitude download nvidia-96

Answer 5

Yes you can. Type the following in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install -d <"package" or "packages">

Here -d parameter only downloads packages and not install the packages. You can find the downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt folder.

If you use Synaptic, then select downloads only option.