How to Install NextCloud Desktop Client on Debian 9 Stretch

This tutorial will show you how to install NextCloud desktop client on Debian 9 Stretch. If you want to know how to install NextCloud server on Debian 9, please check out the following tutorial.

Note: Starting with Debian 10, the NextCloud desktop client is included in the default repository. You can easily install it by running this command in root privilege: apt install nextcloud-desktop.

Installing NextCloud Desktop Client on Debian 9 via PPA

The NextCloud development team provides an official PPA for Ubuntu. It can also be used to install NextCloud desktop client on Debian 9. You can run add-apt-repository command on Debian 9. It’s provided by the software-properties-common package, but it won’t work like Ubuntu out of the box. I will show you how to manually add NextCloud PPA on Debian. Steps are described below.

Open up a terminal window and switch to root user.

su -

Then create a new source list file for NextCloud Linux client.

nano /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nextcloud-client.list

Copy the following two lines and paste them into the source list file. Note that for Debian 9, you will need to use the zesty package for compatibility.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nextcloud-devs/client/ubuntu zesty main 
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nextcloud-devs/client/ubuntu zesty main

nextcloud desktop client

Save and close the file. Then we need to download and import the signing key to our Debian 9 system so that the integrity of software packages downloaded from this PPA can be verified by APT package manager. Run the following commands. dirmngr is needed to access key servers.

apt install dirmngr
apt-key adv --recv-key --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com AD3DD469

nextcloud client debian

Now update local package index and install NextCloud desktop client.

apt update

apt install nextcloud-client

Once installed, you can start NextCloud client from application menu or use the following command in terminal as a standard user.

nextcloud

Enter your NextCloud server address.

nextcloud client debian 9

Enter NextCloud username and password.

nextcloud linux client

Next, set up local folder options.

How to Install nextcloud desktop client on Debian 9 stretch

Run NextCloud Client on Startup

To enable auto start at boot time, simply go to NextCloud settings, then select General tab and check Launch on System Startup.

nextcloud client autostart

That’s it! I hope this tutorial helped you install NextCloud desktop client on Debian 9 Stretch. As always, if you found this post useful, then subscribe to our free newsletter to get new tutorials.

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25 Responses to “How to Install NextCloud Desktop Client on Debian 9 Stretch

  • Very helpful and straightforward. Works on Debian Buster too. Thanks for the HOWTO!

  • Hi,

    I tried to install the client just like described but i get this error:

    “Package nextcloud-client is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source.”

    Any thoughts on this?

    Thanks in advance.

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      That is strange. If you have correctly added the PPA on Debian 9, your system should be able to find the nextcloud-client package.

      If the PPA isn’t added, then running apt install nextcloud-client will tell you E: Unable to locate package nextcloud-client.

      • Hi Xiao and thanks for the promt reply. This is the response i get:
        “E: Package ‘nextcloud-client’ has no installation candidate.”

        I followed your exact steps.

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      If you are using Debian 9 and followed my instructions to the letter but still get this error, I can’t figure out what’s wrong.

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      Maybe you forgot to update package list.

      apt update

      If you are not root, you can switch to root using this command:

      su -

      Then run

      apt update
  • Hi Xiao, i did update but I’ll try with root and let you know.

  • Did it with root but still nothing. This is the output:

    “Package nextcloud-client is not available, but is referred to by another package.
    This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
    is only available from another source

    E: Package ‘nextcloud-client’ has no installation candidate”

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      Can you run

      cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nextcloud-client.list

      and paste the output here?

  • deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nextcloud-devs/client/ubuntu zesty main
    deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/nextcloud-devs/client/ubuntu zesty main

  • Could be that the source is not trusted? In that case how should I proceed?

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      The file is correct. So I have no idea why your system can’t find nextcloud-client. You can use owncloud-client, which is compatible with Nextcloud.

      apt install owncloud-client
  • Hi,

    Thanks a lot for your tutorial. Personally the installation fail at “apt-key adv –recv-key –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com AD3DD469” stage. Console output goes like:

     Executing: /tmp/apt-key-gpghome.7PcReOvaJm/gpg.1.sh --recv-key --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com AD3DD469  

    and after a while end with:

     gpg: keyserver receive failed: Connexion terminée par expiration du délai d'attente 

    ( : connexion ended by time limit expiration)

    Any idea of what this could be about? Is the server ok?

    have a good one!

    • Xiao Guo An (Admin)
      5 years ago

      The server is OK, but there’s a connection problem between your computer and the server. You can try using a VPN to fix the error.

  • Richard
    5 years ago

    Thanks! I now use your instructions with Debian 10 (buster/testing) and the Ubuntu 19.04 disco sources, works the same!
    It comes with the newer nextcloud-client 2.5.2.

    deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/nextcloud-devs/client/ubuntu disco main

    • This problem crops up frequently in tutorials that require keys to be imported. It can be caused by ports being limited by a firewall. A safer version to use is:
      apt-key adv –recv-key –keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 AD3DD469
      which only requires that port 80 is open for outgoing traffic – nearly always true.

  • the zesty distro seems no longer updated it’s better to use the xenial distro, also based on debian 9 and updated to the latest nextcloud version

    • sorry… that doesn’t work…

    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      Or, you can upgrade Debian 9 to Debian 10. The nextcloud-desktop client is in Buster repository.

      • I’ll do that when the printer drivers are updated, don’t understand why stopped working

        • Martin
          3 years ago

          This has the drawback that the nextcloud-desktop in the Buster repository seems not to include nextcloudcmd, which is the only reason I want the client 🙁

  • #apt install nextcloud-client
    Reading package lists… Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information… Done
    Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
    requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
    distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
    or been moved out of Incoming.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    nextcloud-client : Depends: libnextcloudsync0 (= 2.3.3-20171224.060956~zesty1) but 2.6.1-1 is to be installed
    E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages

    • Xiao Guoan (Admin)
      4 years ago

      Are you using Debian Bullseye?

      Starting with Debian 10, the NextCloud desktop client is included in the default repository. You can easily install it by running this command in root privilege: apt install nextcloud-desktop.

      • I had this problem too, despite the comment above that the procedure works for Buster. And, as mentioned above, the nextcloud-desktop in the Buster repo does not have nextcloudcmd. How is it possible to install nextcloudcmd on to a Buster server? Anyone know?

        • Martin
          3 years ago

          Spoke too soon. The first suggestion from the installer (re libnextcloudsync0 not installed) is to leave nextcloud-client uninstalled. If that solution is rejected, then a second solution is offered which installs the missing item. This seems to work. It also installs nextcloudcmd which is what I wanted. Has anyone experimented to find out whether nextcloudcmd is totally stand alone or needs other stuff? Installing nextcloud-client brings in a whole lot of desktop stuff that is not wanted on a headless server. It would be really great to be able to install nextcloudcmd with a minimum of other software. (Pity I couldn’t edit my reply!)

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