Package management
Want to flesh out your installation?
There are multiple tools that distros use to manage packages, including both text-based and graphical tools.
Debian uses the venerable APT package manager, with Aptitude as the CLI front-end and Synaptic as a graphical manager. Since Debian places great significance on stability, it doesn’t aim to release the latest versions of most software.
Ubuntu’s package management system is derived from Debian. Besides APT and Aptitude, there’s the Ubuntu Software Center, a graphical utility for installing, purchasing and removing software. Ubuntu also has PPA (Personal Package Archive) repos and ships with support for Snap universal packages.
Fedora uses the RPM Package Manager with several higherlevel tools built on top, most notably DNF and graphical package managers PackageKit and Gnome Package Manager. RPM Fusion is a popular community-maintained repo that provides packages that can’t be distributed in Fedora for legal reasons.
Although OpenSUSE uses RPM packages, instead of DNF it uses ZYpp. The distro is popular for its one-click installation mechanism, which automates the process of adding repos to the package manager and installing one or multiple RPM packages.
Slackware has an esoteric package management system. Packages are distributed as compressed tarballs, and the distro has its own set of tools for installing, upgrading and removing these packages. However, unlike the other distros, Slackware’s package manager doesn’t resolve dependencies, due to the distro’s design principles. That said, there are solutions, such as Slapt-get, that enable automatic dependency handling.
Ubuntu has tools to upgrade the entire installation to the next release. Similarly, like Ubuntu, Fedora’s package management tools alert you when there’s a new release, and can upgrade to it without much effort. OpenSUSE also makes it straightforward to upgrade. Upgrading Debian and Slackware installations forces you to use the CLI and takes some doing, but it can be done.