Package Management

How software gets installed and updated - APT/dpkg, DNF/RPM, pacman, and building from source when there's no package.

Package managers differ sharply between distribution families. This section covers the three you're most likely to meet, plus what to do when none of them have what you need.

  • APT and dpkg

    Debian, Ubuntu, and their derivatives' package management stack - dpkg installs individual .deb packages, while APT sits on top handling dependency resolution and repositories.

  • Building From Source

    What to do when the software you need isn't packaged for your distribution - the standard configure/make/install pattern, and why it deserves a different install location than package-managed software.

  • DNF and RPM

    Fedora and RHEL-family systems' package stack - rpm installs individual .rpm packages, while DNF (the successor to YUM) handles dependency resolution and repositories on top.

  • Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage

    Distro-agnostic package formats that bundle their own dependencies - trading disk space and startup overhead for the same package working identically on Debian, Fedora, Arch, and everything else, independent of that distro's own repositories.

  • Pacman

    Arch Linux's package manager - simpler in structure than APT or DNF, built around a rolling-release model, with the community-run AUR as an unofficial layer for everything not in the official repos.