Supported systems

Debark prepares apt packages for offline Debian and Ubuntu machines. The target is the offline machine where you will install them. The online computer downloads and builds the bundle; it can run a different operating system.

Offline machine

The target matrix includes Debian 12 and 13, and Ubuntu 22.04, 24.04, and 26.04. These releases have built-in baselines for amd64 and arm64. Scheduled integration tests run amd64; arm64 execution requires a manual run with emulation enabled. See validation and known limitations.

The target needs apt and a Linux CLI binary matching its architecture. Installing packages requires root. Debark handles .deb packages; Snap and Flatpak apps are outside its scope.

Other releases and Debian or Ubuntu derivatives are best effort. Use a captured snapshot for them; they do not have built-in baselines. A release must have suitable apt sources and a working build backend.

Baseline OS list

Pass one of these exact IDs to debark build --base or debark snapshot from-base. The same releases and variants appear in the desktop and interactive CLI selectors.

For example:

debark build --base ubuntu:24.04/minimal --arch amd64 jq

You can omit /minimal: ubuntu:24.04 means ubuntu:24.04/minimal. Version numbers are required in built-in IDs; use 24.04, not noble.

List the baselines in your installed CLI:

debark snapshot list-bases --arch amd64

Choose the variant

Variant	What Debark assumes is already installed
minimal	A small base system with apt. This is the default.
server	The base system and standard server packages.
desktop	The base system and the distribution’s default desktop packages.

Choose the variant that matches your target. These are package assumptions, not operating system installers. A desktop baseline used for a minimal machine can skip dependencies that the machine still needs. Use a snapshot for a customized machine, or when you need its actual installed package list and apt settings.

Baseline builds have less end-to-end testing than builds from captured snapshots. The baseline guide explains how to check the assumptions before installing.

Target architecture

Use Debian’s architecture names with --arch:

CLI value	Hardware	Coverage
amd64	64-bit Intel and AMD (also called x86_64 or x64)	Tested target matrix; desktop selector
arm64	64-bit ARM (also called aarch64)	Published CLI; integration runs are opt-in

For example, to build for an ARM64 machine:

debark build --base debian:13/minimal --arch arm64 jq

Without --arch, baseline builds use the online computer’s architecture. Specify it when the target differs. On the target, check with:

dpkg --print-architecture

The CLI also recognizes armhf, armel, i386, ppc64el, s390x, and riscv64. These are best effort: a recognized name does not mean every release has suitable packages or a container image. Cross-architecture container builds also need working emulation.

Online computer

Tool	Operating system and architecture	Build requirements
CLI	Linux amd64 / arm64	Native apt matching the target release, or Docker / Podman.
CLI	macOS Intel / Apple silicon	Source build only; no release binary, CI, or recorded container validation. Needs Docker / Podman and a Linux helper.
CLI	Windows amd64	Docker / Podman and a Linux helper binary. Limited testing of the complete build workflow.
Desktop package	Linux amd64: Ubuntu 24.04 / 26.04 or Debian 13	The CLI, plus the same apt or container requirements.

The desktop package does not install on Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 because its system-library requirements are newer. Those releases still work as offline targets. The desktop release configuration currently builds amd64 packages; it does not publish a Linux arm64 package.

Windows desktop builds are experimental and unsupported. There is no macOS desktop build.

Published CLI binaries cover Linux amd64/arm64 and Windows amd64. Other architectures recognized by the CLI do not have release binaries. See installation for package availability and how to copy the Linux CLI to the offline machine, and backends for containers and Linux helper setup.