Documentation/Package Management

From openSUSE

General information

On modern GNU/Linux distributions like openSUSE, software installation is best done with a package manager. The package manager gets software packages from repositories (online servers, CDs, DVDs etc.) and installs them on your system. The package manager also makes it easy to remove packages later or to update them. The number of packages available for installation depends on which repositories you have added.

Packages can require functionality of other software packages. The package manager will try to manage these dependencies, but conflicts can occur that require user interaction.

openSUSE uses packages in the RPM format. You should only install RPMs that are built specifically for your version of openSUSE.

openSUSE package management

• YaST Software Management - Install, remove and update software
• YaST Online Update (YOU) - Installation of official updates (security or bugfix patches)
• Add Package Repositories to YaST - Make more software available for easy installation
• openSUSE-updater - Notification of updates for KDE-users
• GNOME applet - Notification of updates when using GNOME (planned for 10.3)
• Using zypper - Package management with a command line interface

ZENworks (included by default on 10.1, 10.2)

• Understanding zmd
• ZENworks_Management_Daemon_(ZMD)
• ZENworks_Linux_Management_Client
• Using zen-installer
• Using zen-updater
• Using zen-remover
• Using rug

Package Repositories

• Official Repositories
• Additional YaST Package Repositories
• Mirror

Other package managers

• Smart Package Manager
• Yum
• apt4rpm
• y2pmsh
• Compiling the software yourself

Backend technology

• Libzypp

Misc

• Patterns

External Links

• Webpin package search

• Hacking openSUSE 10.3