How to implement package install suggestion on Debian?

The reason that installing command-not-found did not start providing suggestions for non-installed packages was that I had missed a small notification from dpkg as part of the install.

One is supposed to run the command update-command-not-found immediately after running apt-get install command-not-found. In fact dpkg prompts for running this command.

The debian package seems to be incomplete. The README says that you should source /etc/bash_command_not_found in your .bashrc. Strangely that file is not included in the package.

The debian command-not-found package is based on the ubuntu package. The ubuntu package seems to be more complete in that regard.

Content of the ubuntu version of bash_command_not_found:

command_not_found_handle() {
  if  [ -x /usr/lib/command-not-found ]; then
     /usr/lib/command-not-found -- "$1" 
     return $?
  else
     return 127
  fi        
}

Add those lines to your ~/.bashrc (or /etc/bash.bashrc) and the command-not-found feature should work.

I solve this problem by:

First install command-not-found

sudo apt update
sudo apt install command-not-found

After that

sudo update-command-not-found
sudo apt update