[PLUG] Linux distributions

Mike C. mconnors1 at gmail.com
Sat Aug 29 07:48:51 UTC 2015


"It is usually, except in SuSE flavors (and we also used SLES at oldjob),
pretty easy to match up
rpms to a redhat version and more difficult in a debian or ubuntu environment.
Both package management environments aren't the best (apt-/dpkg vs
yum/rpm), though I think redhat gets the tip because apt-cache and dpkg
--get-selections are just weird to anyone not used to
them."

When Debian is installed it's configured to point to the specific
repository for that release, such as Wheezy, which I'm currently running.
So every package I can see in the repository is a Wheezy package.

It also seems that maybe you don't understand the Debian pkg mgmt system
very well. There isn't a "dpkg --get" command, there's however "dpkg -i"
which is similar to the "rpm -i" command to install a specific package and
manually deal with any dependencies.

"apt" is akin to "yum" in that it will attempt to install the package and
any dependencies. "Apt-get" is the command you were thinking of. Aptitude
provides more pkg. mgmt intelligence than "apt" and is the officially
sanctioned package manager, which you didn't mention.

"apt-cache" is for searching through the apt software package cache and
getting package info. I rarely use it.

For me, the pkg mgmt system played a huge factor in my distro choice. The
APT package mgmt system and all its tools make so much sense to me. are so
easy to use and useful.

Crunchbang (Debian Wheezy w. Openbox) runs in less than a 150 MB and that
makes me squeal w. joy!

I guess that's what makes Linux so great, there's a flavor for everyone.



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