cowbuilder-dist command not found

In this troubleshooting guide we learn how to fix cowbuilder-dist command not found error message

Introduction

When you run more command in linux terminal / console, you get the following error message

cowbuilder-dist: command not found

or when using sudo you get the following error message

sudo: cowbuilder-dist: command not found

Solutions to cowbuilder-dist: command not found

How To Fix cowbuilder-dist: command not found in Ubuntu / Debian / Kali Linux / Raspbian

In Ubuntu cowbuilder-dist is provided by ubuntu-dev-tools package.

ubuntu-dev-tools is:

This is a collection of useful tools that Ubuntu developers use to make their packaging work a lot easier.

Such tools include:

  • backportpackage - helper to test package backports
  • bitesize - add the ‘bitesize’ tag to a bug and comment that you are willing to help fix it.
  • check-mir - check support status of build/binary dependencies
  • check-symbols - will compare and give you a diff of the exported symbols of all .so files in a binary package.
  • dch-repeat - used to repeat a change log into an older release.
  • grab-merge - grabs a merge from merges.ubuntu.com easily.
  • grep-merges - search for pending merges from Debian.
  • import-bug-from-debian - copy a bug from the Debian BTS to Launchpad
  • merge-changelog - manually merges two Debian changelogs with the same base version.
  • mk-sbuild - script to create LVM snapshot chroots via schroot and sbuild.
  • pbuilder-dist, cowbuilder-dist - wrapper script for managing several build chroots (for different Ubuntu and Debian releases) on the same system.
  • pull-debian-debdiff - attempts to find and download a specific version of a Debian package and its immediate parent to generate a debdiff.
  • pull-debian-source - downloads the latest source package available in Debian of a package.
  • pull-lp-source - downloads source package from Launchpad.
  • pull-lp-debs - downloads debs package(s) from Launchpad.
  • pull-lp-ddebs - downloads dbgsym/ddebs package(s) from Launchpad.
  • pull-lp-udebs - downloads udebs package(s) from Launchpad.
  • pull-debian-* - same as pull-lp-* but for Debian packages.
  • pull-uca-* - same as pull-lp-* but for Ubuntu Cloud Archive packages.
  • pull-pkg - common script that provides above pull-* functionality.
  • requestbackport - file a backporting request.
  • requestsync - files a sync request with Debian changelog and rationale.
  • reverse-depends - find the reverse dependencies (or build dependencies) of a package.
  • seeded-in-ubuntu - query if a package is safe to upload during a freeze.
  • setup-packaging-environment - assistant to get an Ubuntu installation ready for packaging work.
  • sponsor-patch - Downloads a patch from a Launchpad bug, patches the source package, and uploads it (to Ubuntu or a PPA)
  • submittodebian - automatically send your changes to Debian as a bug report.
  • syncpackage - helper to prepare .changes file to upload synced packages
  • ubuntu-build - give commands to the Launchpad build daemons from the command line.
  • ubuntu-iso - output information of an Ubuntu ISO image.
  • ubuntu-upload-permission - query / list the upload permissions for a package.
  • update-maintainer - script to update maintainer field in ubuntu packages.

To fix this problem, we can install more using the command below.

sudo apt-get -y install ubuntu-dev-tools

This command might take some time to finish depending on your machine internet connection.

You can also use apt command to install ubuntu-dev-tools.

sudo apt -y install ubuntu-dev-tools

Or if you have aptitude installed you can use the following command.

sudo aptitude install ubuntu-dev-tools

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to fix cowbuilder-dist command not found error in Ubuntu / Debian / Kali Linux or Raspbian distribution.