Package manager

If you spot that the commands for the package manager of your favourite distribution are incorrect, feel free to add them or fix them in this page.

Package managers are used by some operating systems, namely the BSDs and also GNU Linux to simplify the download, installation and removal of programs in the system. Each GNU Linux distribution family, more or less has a different package manager that they think is the best that they pre-install.

GNU/Linux

apt and dpkg

The combination of dpkg and the Advanced Packaging Tool is used in Debian and most distributions that have spun off from Debian, namely Ubuntu.

Note: All apt-get commands are interchangeable with apt. The two are technically separate packages, but apt is more feature-filled. It has progress-bars, for example

command	description
apt-get install <package>	Installs a package
apt-get purge <package>	removes package (with data)
apt-get remove <package>	removes package
apt-get --purge autoremove	removes orphaned packages
apt-get update	updates package list
apt-get upgrade	upgrades packages
apt-get full-upgrade	Upgrades the entire system, and the distro
apt-get clean	cleans the package-cache
apt-cache search <query>	search the package-cache with a query
apt-get build-dep <package>	downloads dependencies for building a package per apt instructions

dnf

See page: DNF

Zypper

Zypper is a CLI front end for openSUSE's package manager, libzypp. The RPM package format is used, but the package manager itself is independent from Fedora and Red Hat.

In contrast to many other package managers, zypper does not require the user to update the repository listings manually. The 'update' function actually updates the system (in other words, it does what other package managers refer to as "upgrading".)

Commands may be given in short form as shown below, which can be expanded to their full English form, for example:

• in - install
• rm - remove
• up - update
• se - search

command	description
zypper in <package>	installs a package
zypper rm <package>	removes a package
zypper up	updates package-cache
zypper se <query>	searches package-cache
zypper ar <repo>	add a third-party repository to the package-cache
zypper rr <repo>	remove a third-party repository to the package-cache

portage

Portage is primarily used in the source-based Gentoo and Funtoo distributions, which means that Portage manipulates a ports tree and automates compilation of packages.

command	description
emerge --sync	To update the ports tree
emerge --update --deep --with-bdeps=y --newuse @world	To upgrade installed packages
emerge --search <query>	To search for a package with a query
emerge <package>	To install (download and compile) a package
emerge --unmerge <package>	To remove a package
emerge --pretend <package>	To simulate the installation of a package
emerge --fetchonly <package>	To only download the source code of a package
emerge --vp <cariable>	To check USE flags for a package

slackpkg

slackpkg is Slackware's package manager.

command	description
slackpkg install <package>	To install a package
slackpkg remove <package>	To remove a package
slackpkg search <package>	To search for a package with a query
slackpkg upgrade-all	To upgrade all installed packages
slackpkg update	To update the package list
slackpkg info package	To get information on a package

Unofficial packages

The slackpkg repositories are limited to Slackware core packages. Unofficial packages can be downloaded and added with

upgradepkg --install-new <local_package.tgz>

Slackware also supports building packages from source code or from RPM packages with Slackbuild scripts. This gives the security and flexibility of building from source with the ease of package-based management.

To build a Slackbuild, download and extract the Slackbuild tarball, download the source tarball or .rpm file and place it in the Slackbuild directory, cd into the Slackbuild directory, optionally edit the configuration file if one exists, run the PROGRAM_NAME.Slackbuild script like so:

# bash ./package.Slackbuild

After the script finishes, the last line should read "Package /tmp/PACKAGE_NAME.tgz successfuly created" if the compilation succeeded. Install the package like so: upgradepkg --install-new /tmp/package.tgz

pacman

See the pacman page and also yaourt for the pacman wrapper.

xbps

command	description
xbps-install -Su	To both update the package list and upgrade all installed packages
xbps-install -Su <package>	To both update the package list and install a package
xbps-remove -R <package>	To remove a package

*BSD

FreeBSD

Speaks for itself:

command	description
pkg install <package>	To install a package
pkg delete <package>	To remove a package
pkg info <package>	To show a description of the package
pkg search <package>	To search for a package with a query
pkg upgrade	To upgrade all installed packages
pkg autoremove	To remove all orphaned packages

OpenBSD

command	description
pkg_add <package>	To install a package
pkg_delete <package>	To remove a package
pkg_info <package>	To show a description of a package

OS X

On top of the App Store and the Hack Store, third-party package managers resembling those used by GNU/Linux are available.

fink

See the main page.

macports

See the main page.

brew

command	description
brew install <package>	To install a package
brew uninstall <package>	To remove a package
brew tap <repo>	To add a third-party repo
brew update	Update package cache
brew upgrade	upgrade the system
brew help	Give help information for using the Brew package manager