Debian package management

# the Debian APT = Advanced Packaging Tool

# update and upgrade

$ sudo apt-get update # update is used to resynchronize the package index files from their sources

$ sudo apt-get upgrade # upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list

dealing with packages files (.deb)

# what's the official package name?

$ dpkg --info PACKAGE.deb

# which files are included? will be created from this package file?

$ dpkg --contents PACKAGE.deb

# ...

$ ...

dealing with installed packages

# which packages are installed (together with details)?

$ dpkg-query --list

# is there an installed package, that sounds like XYZ?

$ dpkg-query --list | fgrep XYZ

# details of an installed package (that you know the name of, e.g. PACKAGE)

$ dpkg-query --list PACKAGE

# what's the content of an installed package (e.g. PACKAGE)?

$ dpkg-query --listfiles PACKAGE

# ...

$ ...

rpm2deb

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rpm_(software)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_(software)
• https://www.howtoforge.com/converting_rpm_to_deb_with_alien : alien -k ...

Open questions:

• how to deal with dependencies specified within the RPM package?
• …

The blog article got created 1st, but then the content got moved here:

• http://Jochen.Hayek.name/wp/blog-en/2018/04/13/rpm2deb/