Package Management in Linux Environment

There are two major packaging systems in Linux. To simplify and automate package management, some front-end applications are developed.

The packaging systems are i) the Red Hat Package Manager (RPM) and ii) the Debian GNU/Linux Package Manager.

For RPM-based systems, the application is yum and for Debian-based systems, the applications are apt, aptitude, and synaptic. Nowadays, apt is also available for RPM-based systems.

To install an application on a Linux system, you may download binary files or source files.

A package contains all the necessary files to install an application. Sometimes, the application requires the presence of packages or files, which may not be installed. These files are known as dependencies. Hence, to install the new package, the dependencies must be installed.

Tasks of Package Manager

Package managers do the following things:

• Provide tools for installing, updating, removing, and managing the software on your system.
• Maintain different versions of packages.
• Provide dependency checking, to choose the right software which is compatible with the operating system.
• Provide tools for building packages.

Package Managers

There are many package managers. A list of popular package managers is listed below.

The Advanced Package Tool (APT)

It's a user-friendly command-line-based package-management tool. Though there are many versions of the apt commands, the most frequently used one is aptget.

dpkg

The original Debian packaging tool. The dpkg is commonly used to install a package that is already on your system. Moreover, apt-get calls dpkg to do the installation once it's gotten the package.

RPM

The original command-line system for installing and managing RPM packages. It contains two commands i) rpm for installing and managing packages, and ii) rpmbuild for creating packages.

Yellowdog Updater Modified (yum)

It is the Red Hat package manager, by which packages are installed/uninstalled/updated. It resolves dependency automatically at the time of installation of the new package.

Happy Exploring!