HOWTO: Read a sources.list File

The format is deb URI distribution component. As the APT man page states:

Typically, distribution is generally one of stable, unstable, or testing, while component is one of main, contrib, non-free, or non-us.

In this case:

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian stable main contrib non-free

The packages available are of type deb and they are located at http.us.debian.org/debian. APT is to use the http protocol to connect to the repository and the distribution is stable and the components are main, contrib, and non-free.

In another way, this means that APT should use the http protocol to connect to http.us.debian.org/debian and look in the dists/stable/main dists/stable/contrib and dists/stable/non-free directories. The dists directory is never mentioned in the sources.list file, but after manually examining the directory structure of several repositores, it seems that there is always a dists directory right off the URI root. I welcome clarification on from someone who is more familiar with this format.

Easter egg contributed by Gustin of the Calgary Linux User Group:

try typing apt-get moo