Welcome to Installing Software and Updates.
After watching this video, you will be able to: Describe packages and package managers Differentiate between packages
for deb- and RPM-based distros Use a package manager to install updates And use a package manager to install software. Both software updates and software installation
files for Linux operating systems are distributed in files known as packages. These packages
are archive files containing the required components for either installing new
software or updating existing software. You use package managers to manage the download
and installation of packages. Different Linux distros provide different package managers—some
are GUI-based and some are command line tools. Deb and RPM packages are used by package
managers in Linux operating systems. They are distinct file types containing software or
updates for different Linux operating systems. .deb files are used for Debian-based
distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint. Deb stands for Debian. And .rpm files are used for Red Hat-based
distributions such as CentOS/RHEL, Fedora, and openSUSE. RPM stands
for Red Hat Package Manager. Deb and RPM formats are equivalent, so
the contents of the file can be used on other types of Linux OSs. If you find
that a package that you want to use is only available in the other format you
can convert it using the alien tool. To convert packages from RPM format to deb, simply
use the alien command and specify the package name that you want to convert. To convert to RPM
format, use the –r switch with the alien command. Package managers provide several benefits: They can automatically resolve
dependencies between packages They can notify you when updates are available GUI-based package managers can automatically check for security and software
updates on a regular basis And they can automatically install updates or let
you select and install just the ones you want. GUI-based Linux distro package managers
include PackageKit and Update Manager. Update Manager is a GUI tool for
updating deb-based Linux systems. By default, Update Manager checks for software
updates daily, and automatically downloads and installs any security updates daily.
All other updates are displayed weekly. You can also manually check
for updates at any time. Update Manager will notify you when
software updates are available: Select the updates you want to install Click ‘Install Updates’ If prompted, enter your
user password, and click OK. And Update Manager installs the updates in
the background while you continue working. apt is a command-line tool for
updating deb-based Linux systems. You use the “sudo apt update” command to
find available packages for your distro. The output of this command
lists each available package, builds a dependency tree, and lets you
know how many packages can be upgraded. To upgrade all installed packages on a system,
use the “sudo apt upgrade” command. If you want to only install a specific package,
you can use “sudo apt install package_name” PackageKit is a GUI tool for
updating RPM-based Linux systems. When updates are available, PackageKit displays
a starburst icon in the notification area. It automatically checks for
updates at a configurable interval, and you can also manually
check for them at any time. Clicking the starburst icon
opens the Software Update window, which lists all available software updates: Select the updates you want to install and then click Install Updates. If requested, enter your
user password, and click OK And PackageKit installs the updates in
the background while you continue working. yum is a command-line tool for
updating RPM-based systems. yum stands for Yellowdog Updater, Modified. To update all packages in your
system, type "sudo yum update" After you enter your password, Yum fetches all available package updates. And then it displays a summary of the
updates and asks you to confirm the download. If confirmed, yum downloads all the package
updates, and updates the packages on your system. And when finished, it displays
the success message "Complete!" You can also use command line
tools to install new software. Use the apt command with the install switch
to install a package on a deb-based system. And use the yum command with the install switch
to install software on an RPM-based system. Many software applications use package managers, such as the popular pip or conda packages,
for managing Python environments. For example, assuming you already have a Python
environment and the relevant pip package, you can easily install the popular “pandas”
library used for data wrangling in Python. Enter “pip install pandas” to
instruct the pip package manager to: Search for the latest pandas package, Download the pandas package, Check for dependencies and update as required, And install the pandas package. When the installation is complete, the package
manager displays the new software version number. In this video, you learned that: .deb and .rpm are distinct file types used by
package managers in Linux operating systems deb and RPM formats can be
converted from one to the other Update Manager and PackageKit are
popular GUI-based package managers used in deb- and RPM-based distros, respectively And apt and yum are popular
command line package managers used in deb- and RPM-based distros, respectively.