Do-It Yourself Computing 2: Packages
In Linux Land, distributions are often divided into categories based on how they manage software. It's more than just keeping track of what is installed, but what version. The obvious issue is security updates. Software is usually offered in packages. Sometimes they are all self-contained; often there are packages which depend on others. These dependencies usually make sense, but not always. You don't have to be a developer to know there is no sense in requiring one package with another, when the second won't even use the first. Yet I assure you it does happen. Sometimes it's a simple matter of adding extra packages to add extra functions. Either way, it helps if the package management is smart enough to tell you what it needs to run when there's something missing. There are three main systems for package management.
Debian and its derivatives use DEBs. You recognize them because the file names end in ".deb" which can be installed in several different ways. Debian's hallmark is breaking packages down into smaller chunks, so that almost nothing is self-contained in a single DEB.
RedHat and its friends use RPMs. This is an abbreviation for RedHat Package Manager. Both RPMs and DEBs are compressed software bundled with a set of instructions which inform the management system what it is, where it goes, and what has to come with it (dependencies). The original tool for managing these RPMs is the rpm command, invoked always with switches to indicate what you want it to do.
Some packages are simply zipped up bundles, and have to be installed manually. They are usually marked with ".tgz" or some variation. Of course, if you are downloading source code to compile yourself, they also usually come with that on the end of the file name. Lately a slightly different zip format has become popular, which ends in ".bz2" -- both this and the tgz format will be covered more in-depth in another lesson.
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