Package management
Concepts
- Package: an archive of software
- Contains resource, docs, config and pre-compiled binary of the software itself
- May not contains the dependencies or libraries.
- But instead specifiy the information about dependencies
- Dependency: also a package, act as library for other packages to reference to
- May also specify other dependencies
- Repository: a webhost to store packages
- Package manager: a software installed in a Linux distribution
- Helps finding packages in software store/repository
- Manage installation, update, remove…
- Auto find/resolve/update dependencies for a package
Reference: Linode - Linux package management
Common package management systems in Linux
There are many package manager for linux systems
Debian/Ubuntu
This is Debian-based distributions like Ubuntu, Mint, Raspian…
At lowest level, system uses .deb package format.
The cmd line tool to install a package file is dpkg.
Advanced Packaging Tool (apt) is package manager, uses dpkg under the hood.
It supports finding/installing packages in software repositories.
Software repositories are managed in file /etc/apt/sources.list.
Other systems
Ref: apt-yum-dnf-pkg
Package management in Windows
Some populars in Windows systems: Scoop, Chocolatey…