Lesson 5.1: Linux package management
How software gets onto a Linux machine: packages, repositories, dependencies, signatures and the package manager that ties them together; why you install from the distribution's repositories instead of random websites.
15 min
You will learn to
- Explain package, repository, dependency and package manager
- Explain why repositories are signed
- See where the repositories are configured
- Recognise the 'can be installed with' message
Key terms
- Package
- A single file that contains a program's files plus metadata: name, version, description, dependencies and scripts to run on install.
- Repository (repo)
- A server that offers thousands of packages built and checked by the distribution, plus an index of them.
- Dependency
- Another package a package needs in order to work. The package manager installs dependencies automatically.
- Package manager
- The tool that downloads packages from repositories, checks their signatures, resolves dependencies, installs, upgrades and removes them, and remembers which file belongs to which package.
- Signature (GPG key)
- A cryptographic proof that a repository's packages were published by the distribution and not changed on the way.
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