Package Managers

A Package Manager (or package-management system) is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner.

Depending on your machine configuration and your development toolchain, you may have need of all sorts of package managers. Each package manager serves different needs or operating systems. Some of it is built-in like Windows Update. Others you may have to download and configure yourself. Here are some common ones.

A cheat sheet for most major Linux package managers can be found at DistroWatch.¹⁾

Flatpak is a type of package manager that packages the application and all of its dependencies inside a container. In the Linux world, some applications are just gonna be better off deployed automatically with Flatpak instead of the OS's built in package manager. Some distros now come with Flatpak preinstalled. You can use a [tools:bash:customization|bash alias]] to have both your system updates and Flatpak updates go off with a single update command.

Snap is a similar, more frustrating version of Flatpak, bundled with Ubuntu. If it is on your system, luckily it is easy to replace with Flatpak.

Windows and MacOS have their own built-in update services that function as the core package managers for the system, providing all the first-party software. Further applications (like third-party web browsers) have their own built-in update services as well.

In the smartphone and tablet ecosystem, Android and iOS have their own package managers themselves, which take the form of built-in update services and rudely gatekept app stores. Short of hacking the hell out of your device, what you see is what you get.

Various programming and scripting languages have their own package management suites as well: