5_Best Package Managers for Linux Newbies

Summary: A new Linux user should know that his or her progress comes from the use of Linux distributions, which come in several varieties and manage packages in different ways. In Linux, the package manager is very important. Knowing how to use a variety of package managers can make your life as comfortable as a master, from downloading software from repositories, installing software, updating software, handling dependencies and removing software is very Importantly, this is also an important part of Linux system administration.

A new Linux user should know that his or her progress comes from using Linux distributions, which come in several varieties and manage packages in different ways.

In Linux, the package manager is very important. Knowing how to use a variety of package managers can make your life as comfortable as a master, from downloading software from repositories, installing software, updating software, handling dependencies and removing software is very Importantly, this is also an important part of Linux system administration.

Best Linux Package Managers One of the marks of

being a Linux whiz is knowing how the major Linux distributions handle packages, in this article, we should take a look at some of the best package managers you can find on Linux,

at Here, our main focus is on relevant information about some of the best package managers, but not how to use them, which is left to you to discover for yourself. But I'll provide some meaningful links, how-to guides or more.

1. DPKG - Debian Package Management System Debian Package Management System
Dpkg is the basic package management system of the Debian Linux family, which is used to install, delete, store and provide information about .deb packages.

This is a low-level tool, and there are several front-end tools that can help users fetch packages from remote repositories, or handle complex package relationships, including the following:

Reference: 15 "dpkg" for Debian-based distributions " command instance
APT (Advanced Packaging Tool)
is a front-end tool for the dpkg package management system, which is a very popular, free and powerful, and useful command-line package manager system.

Users of Debian and its derivatives such as Ubuntu and Linux Mint should be very familiar with this package management tool.

To see how it works, you can check out these HOW TO guides:

Reference: 15 Examples of How to Use the New APT Tool on Ubuntu/Debian
Reference : 25 Useful APT-Tools for Package Management The basic command of GET and APT-CACHE
Aptitude Package Manager
This is also a very well-known command-line front-end package management tool for the Debian Linux family. It works like APT. There are many places to compare between them, however, you should two Try both to see which one works better.

It was originally designed for Debian and its derivatives, but now its functionality extends to the RHEL family. You can refer to this guide to learn more about APT and Aptitude.

Reference: What are APT and Aptitude? Do they know what the difference is?
Synaptic Package Manager
Synaptic is a visual package manager based on GTK+ APT, which is very useful for some users who don't want to use the command line.

2. RPM - Red Hat Package Manager Red Hat Package Manager
This is the Linux Basic Standard (LSB) packaging format and basic package management system created by Red Hat. Based on this underlying system, there are multiple front-end package management tools at your disposal, but we should only look at the best ones, which are:

YUM (Yellowdog Updater, Modified)
This is an open source, popular command-line package manager, which is the user interface (one) for using RPM. You can compare it with APT in Debian Linux system, it has the same function as APT. You can understand YUM more clearly from the examples in this HOW TO guide:

Reference: 20 YUM Commands for Package Management
DNF (the graceful YumDandified Yum)
This is also a package manager for RPM based distributions, Fedora 18 introduced it and it is the next generation of YUM.

If you use Fedora 22 and newer, you definitely know it's the default package manager. Here are some links that will give you more information about DNF and how to use it.

Reference: DNF - The Next Generation of Universal Package Management Software for RPM-Based Distributions
Reference : 27 Examples of 'DNF' Commands for Managing Fedora Packages
3. Pacman Package Manager – Arch Linux
This is a popular, powerful and easy-to-use Package manager for Arch Linux and some other niche distributions. It provides some basic functionality that other package managers provide, including installing, automatically resolving dependencies, upgrading, uninstalling, and downgrading software.

But the biggest benefit is that it creates a simple and easy way to manage packages for Arch users. You can read the Pacman overview which explains some of the features mentioned above.

4. Zypper Package Manager – openSUSE
This is a command-line package manager for OpenSUSE systems made using the libzypp library. Its common functions include accessing repositories, installing packages, resolving dependencies, and other functions.

What's more, it can also support repository extension features such as schemas, patches and products. New OpenSUSE users can refer to the link below to get hold of it.

Reference: 45 Zypper Commands to Master OpenSUSE Package Management
5. Portage Package Manager – Gentoo
This is Gentoo’s package manager, a distro that is not very popular these days, but that doesn’t stop it from being the best under Linux One of the package managers.

The main goal of the Portage project is to create a simple, trouble-free package management system with backward compatibility, automation, and more.

If you want to understand more clearly, you can take a look at: Portage project page.

Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning, the main intent of this guide is to give Linux users a list of the best package managers, but knowing how to use them can go through the important links provided afterward and actually try them out they.

Users of individual distributions need to learn something beyond their distribution to better understand these different package managers mentioned above.

The original release time is: 2016-09-10

This article is from Yunqi Community Partner "Linux China"