package management system

[Mets]

hey guys, I was wondering if anybody knew of a linux distribution that has a package management system. I know that Lunar Linux has a pretty unique operating method, in which you install a sort of basic system and then download components (called modules) that you want from from their network (which they call a Moonbase - a pretty cool feature), but I can't seem to find anybody else that has a comparable structure. Any names come to mind?

[lakerdonald]

Almost all distros have their own package management system.
Here's some of the various package managers/formats:

Gentoo -- Portage/.ebuild
RedHat/Fedora -- RPM
SuSE -- YaST/RPM
Mandrake -- urpmi/RPM
Debian -- APT/.deb
Slackware -- pkgtool/.tgz
Gobo -- "Recipes"
Archlinux -- pacman

That list is by no means exhaustive either.

[genesus]

the best two that I know of are Debian and Gentoo...Debian uses the apt-get system and Gentoo uses portage...both work very well, Gentoo's takes much longer however it will custom compile the package for your system, while debian will do it in a fraction of the time. For examples of each say that you just want to install firefox, you don't have to find the package or anything, just pop open a terminal and in Gentoo you would type

emerge mozilla-firefox

In debian you would type:

apt-get install mozilla-firefox


its that simple...and both have, I think, almost 20,000 packages, pretty much anything yoiu would want to install...

[lakerdonald]

its that simple...and both have, I think, almost 20,000 packages, pretty much anything yoiu would want to install...

Actually I think Gentoo has more like 9 thousand packages, with about 20K versions in all.
I don't think there exists 20,000 packages out there!

[oz]

Arch, Debian, and Gentoo have the best package management setups in place, in my opinion. I really enjoy using Arch the most but also run the other two distros.

[Dapper Dan]

I think apt-get rpm for Fedora/RH is very much overlooked. It works as well as apt-get Debian, only not as may packages. Apt-get rpm with Fedora is very hard to beat.

[worker201]

I think apt-get rpm for Fedora/RH is very much overlooked. It works as well as apt-get Debian, only not as may packages. Apt-get rpm with Fedora is very hard to beat.

Not as many packages? What are they missing? If you get hooked up with Dag, you'll get just about anything you need.

http://dag.wieers.com/packages/
2166 programs for you - that enough?

When Synaptic, the gui-interface to apt, is updated for FC4, things will be most excellent.

[Dolda2000]

I think apt-get rpm for Fedora/RH is very much overlooked. It works as well as apt-get Debian, only not as may packages. Apt-get rpm with Fedora is very hard to beat.

I've never understood why people want apt-get instead of yum on Fedora machines. Yum comes preinstalled with the system, is very capable, and there are lots of packages out there. Not only in the standard Fedora repos, but also in Livna and Dag's repositories, if you configure them.

What do you get with apt-get that you don't get with yum?

[Dapper Dan]

I think apt-get rpm for Fedora/RH is very much overlooked. It works as well as apt-get Debian, only not as may packages. Apt-get rpm with Fedora is very hard to beat.

I've never understood why people want apt-get instead of yum on Fedora machines. Yum comes preinstalled with the system, is very capable, and there are lots of packages out there. Not only in the standard Fedora repos, but also in Livna and Dag's repositories, if you configure them.

What do you get with apt-get that you don't get with yum?

What does YUM offer over Apt-get RPM? Apt-get RPM comes with Synaptic which is very handy for users who are not yet comfortable with the terminal.

Besides, it's all about choice. I prefer apt-get over yum, and I've used both for a number of years.

As far as the number of packages available, Dag lists 2714 RPM packages. According to Distrowatch, Debian presently has around 8000. Do the math.