---
name: "deb-old"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "dpkg"
version: "1.23.11-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/deb-old"
---

# deb-old(5)

old style Debian binary package format

## NAME

deb-old - old style Debian binary package format

## SYNOPSIS

*filename***.deb**

## DESCRIPTION

The **.deb** format is the Debian binary package file format. This manual page describes the **old** format, used before Debian 0.93. See [**deb**(5)](/deb/5.md) for details of the new format.

## FORMAT

The file is two lines of format information as ASCII text, followed by two concatenated gzipped ustar files.

The first line is the format version number padded to 8 digits, and is **0.939000** for all old-format archives.

The second line is a decimal string (without leading zeroes) giving the length of the first gzipped tarfile.

Each of these lines is terminated with a single newline character.

The first tarfile contains the package metadata, as a series of ordinary files. The file **control** must be present, as it contains the package control information.

In some very old archives, the files in the control tarfile may optionally be in a **DEBIAN** subdirectory. In that case, the **DEBIAN** subdirectory will be in the control tarfile too, and the control tarfile will have only files in that directory. Optionally the control tarfile may contain an entry for ‘**.**’, that is, the current directory.

The second gzipped tarfile is the filesystem archive, containing pathnames relative to the root directory of the system to be installed on. The pathnames do not have leading slashes.

## SEE ALSO

[**deb**(5)](/deb/5.md), [**deb-control**(5)](/deb-control/5.md), [**dpkg-deb**(1)](/dpkg-deb/1.md).