Help Out With Packages You Use in Debian
Many new and existing Debian users want to help make the distribution better but do not quite know where to begin. Debian comes with a very handy package called how-can-i-help which tells you after each aptinvocation the current bugs that are associated with packages on your system. The “Work-Needing and Perspective Packages” (WNPP) listing is a bit overwhelming for new contributors. What better way to figure out what packages need your help than by seeing a list of them each time you use apt.
The first time you run apt after installing this package it will likely spit out a long list of packages that need your help. Each subsequent time it will only show new packages or changes. In order to see the master list again you can use the how-can-i-help –old command to see all packages that need your help. I think this is a great way to get engaged with the software that you rely on each day.
Although getting started with Debian development is not trivial, this lowers the barrier a bit and provides some clear direction on what to work on since the list includes packages that you are using every day.
Thank you for reading! Share your thoughts with me on bluesky, mastodon, or via email.
Check out some more stuff to read down below.
Most popular posts this month
- Great Lakes, Illinois
- Ladybird on Debian Stable
- My Custom Miniflux CSS Theme
- SQLite DB Migrations with PRAGMA user_version
- 2025
Recent Favorite Blog Posts
This is a collection of the last 8 posts that I bookmarked.
- Pluralistic: bunnie's piggyback hack (09 Jan 2026) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Clicks Communicator from Chris Hannah
- A Year Of Vibes from Armin Ronacher's Thoughts and Writings
- Pluralistic: A perfect distillation of the social uselessness of finance (18 Dec 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- Moving from WordPress to Substack from charity.wtf
- Grow, Like a Tree Not a Cancer from Jim Nielsen’s Blog
- Pluralistic: All the books I reviewed in 2025 (02 Dec 2025) from Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
- DEP-18: A proposal for Git-based collaboration in Debian from Optimized by Otto
Articles from blogs I follow around the net
Pluralistic: bunnie's piggyback hack (09 Jan 2026)
Today's links bunnie's piggyback hack: An actual "one weird trick" that's pretty fucking spectacular. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: "Keyboard Practice"; Sam Bulte says she's no dirtier than oth…
via Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow January 9, 202688x31 Button Curios
A smattering of links and resources related to 88x31 buttons
via Robb Knight • Posts • Atom Feed January 9, 2026Bix Frankonis
This week on the People and Blogs series we have an interview with Bix Frankonis, whose blog can be found at bix.blog. Tired of RSS? Read this in your browser or sign up for the newsletter. The People and Blogs series is supported by…
via Manuel Moreale — Everything Feed January 9, 2026Generated by openring