Software Package Management Tools

Linux Distribution (Family)	GUI-based Tool	Command Line Tool
Ubuntu	Ubuntu Software Center	apt
Debian	Synpatic (among others)	apt
Suse/openSuse	Yast	zypper
Red Hat (RHEL/Fedora/CentOS/Scientific)	“Add / Remove Software” menu item gnome-packagekit-installer yumex	yum (for older releases) dnf (for recent releases)
Other	See distro documentation	See distro documentation

The common tasks provided by package managers are :

1) Managing (Install/Remove) Packages

This is the most frequently used set of tasks performed by a package manager. The functions include :

· Installing package from a repository

· Installing package from a file obtained elsewhere than a repository

· Updating an installed package

· Uninstalling a package.

2) Searching for Packages

The known repositories can be searched for packages by name. Descriptive information about the packages can be displayed and the list of packages actually installed can be found.

3) Updating Package Repository Information

Each distribution has its own default list of repositories plus lists of extra repositories that can be added (by URL) should they be required in order to locate a package. Updating the repository information involves the following functions :

· Updating package lists with the latest information

· Listing known repositories

· Adding repositories to the known list

· Removing repositories from the known list