Error (use-package): Failed to install magit: Package `magit-' is unavailable

Question

I am starting to build up a .emacs file to be used as a development environment within Docker containers. I get this error when starting emacs-nox in a Docker container.

Error (use-package): Failed to install magit: Package `magit-' is unavailable
Error (use-package): Cannot load magit

Here is the contents of my .emacs:

;; require package
(require 'package)
    
;; add melpa stable
(add-to-list 'package-archives
        '("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/"))
    
;; add melpa
(add-to-list 'package-archives
        '("melpa" . "http://melpa.milkbox.net/packages/"))
    
;; Initialise packages
(package-initialize)
    
;; get latest package information
(package-refresh-contents)
    
;; add use package
;; so packages can automatically be installed
;; required for reuse across computer or docker containers
(package-install 'use-package)
    
;; add magit for git
(use-package magit
  :ensure t
    :pin melpa-stable)

Answer 1

Thanks to the help of @ChakravarthyRaghunandan and @Kaligule and rereading the Melpa getting started I have been able to use use-package to install magit in a docker container in emacs-nox. The dockerfile starts with FROM debian:stable.

At Melpa - Getting Started, it says:

There are some problems using the https location with Emacs on Windows. There is currently no know easy fix for this. You can still use MELPA by using the non-SSL location by replacing https with http.

So I tried using http instead of https in the Melpa URLs.

(add-to-list 'package-archives
        '("melpa-stable" . "http://stable.melpa.org/packages/"))
    
(add-to-list 'package-archives
        '("melpa" . "http://melpa.org/packages/"))

That got it working.