Linux-Basics-Complete-Course-With-Notes-Slides

DPKG and APT Package Managers

In this section, we will look at debian package managers for distributions like Ubuntu, Debian and PureOS.

• DPKG
• APT

DPKG Utility

• DPKG stands for Debian Package Manager
• It is a low level package manager

Working with DPKG

Similar to RPM, DPKG can be used for the below. The package extension is .deb.

1. Installing
2. Uninstalling
3. Upgrade
4. List
5. Status

6. Verfiying

   

APT and APT-GET

Similar to RPM, DPKG doesnt resolve the dependencies when it comes to package management.

• Install may fail due to dependencies issues. This is the reason why we use higher level debian package managers such as APT and APT-GET.

  

• Instead of relying on DPKG, you can install software along with its dependencies using APT or APT-GET.
• APT or APT-GET although sounds similar, but they do not depend on each other.
• APT stands for advanced package managers, it is more user friendly and overall better tool compared to APT-GET.

  $sudo apt install gimp
  $sudo apt-get install gimp
  

• APT act as a frontend package manager that relies on DPKG utility. In similar to YUM, APT relies on software repository that contains packages that would eventually be installed on a system.

• The software repository for APT is defined in /etc/apt/sources.list file.

  

Let us know see some common commands

To refresh a repository. Run apt update command.

$ sudo apt update

To install available upgrades of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources configured.

$ sudo apt upgrade

Another way to update the repository is to use apt edit-sources command. This opens up the /etc/apt/sources.list file in the text editor of your choice.

$ sudo apt edit-sources

To install the package

$ sudo apt install telnet

To remove the package

$ sudo apt remove telnet

To search or look for a package in the repository.

$ sudo apt search telnet 

To list all the available packages

$ sudo apt list |grep telnet