tools for installing and maintaining software packages
Most Unix variants come with tools to install software packages, list installed packages, upgrade them, remove them and other maintenance tasks. Many variants have two sets of tools:
- a low-level tool for maintaining the packages installed on a machine (install a package file, list the files belonging to an installed package, list the installed packages, …);
- a high-level tool for downloading new or upgraded packages (download and install a package and its dependencies, upgrade all packages, …).
Package management tools
- apt APT, the debian Debian high-level package management suite, over Dpkg (and ported to other low-level packagers), also used by other distributions such as ubuntu Ubuntu
- aptitude An APT-based package manager with both a command line and a full-screen text mode interface
- dpkg The debian Debian low-level package manager, also used by other distributions such as ubuntu Ubuntu
- homebrew The package manager for osx OS X
- pacman A Linux package manager, originally developed for the arch Arch Linux distribution
- rpm A low-level package manager originally developed by Red Hat, now used by many distributions including rhel Red Hat Enterprise Linux, centos CentOS, fedora Fedora, suse SuSE, …
- yast YaST, the suse setup tool, includes the functionality of high-level package management tools
- yum A high-level package manager over RPM, originally from Yellowdog Linux, used by many RPM-based distributions including rhel Red Hat Enterprise Linux, centos CentOS and fedora Fedora
- zypper Zypper, the SuSE high-level command-line packaging tool, and the underlying engine ZYpp
Other related tags
- compiling when you're building from source
- checkinstall when you're using CheckInstall
- software-installation general software installation issues
