List of software package management systems
This is a list of software package management systems.
Binary installation / Precompiled packages
Linux distributions
- dpkg, used originally by Debian and now by other systems, uses the .deb format and was the first to have a widely known dependency resolution tool (APT).
- The RPM Package Manager was created by Red Hat, and is now used by a number of other Linux distributions. RPM is the Linux Standard Base packaging format and is the base of a large number of additional tools, including apt4rpm; Red Hat's up2date; Mandriva's urpmi; openSUSE's ZYpp; PLD Linux's poldek; and YUM, which is used by Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, and Yellow Dog Linux.
- A simple tgz package system combines the standard tar and gzip. Used by Slackware Linux and its closer derivates, there are a few higher-level tools that use the same tgz packaging format, including: slapt-get, slackpkg, zendo, netpkg, and swaret.
- Pacman for Arch Linux, Frugalware and DeLi Linux uses pre-compiled binaries distributed in a compressed Tar archive.
- Smart Package Manager, used by CCux Linux
- ipkg, a dpkg-inspired, very lightweight system targeted at storage-constrained Linux systems such as embedded devices and handheld computers. It is used on HP WebOS.
- opkg, fork of ipkg
- pkgutils, used by CRUX Linux
- PETget, used by Puppy Linux
- Upkg, used by paldo GNU/Linux and ExTiX Linux
- PISI, used by Pardus
- Nix package manager, "a purely functional package manager" which allows multiple versions or variants of a package to be installed; it is similar to Zero Install.
- appbrowser, a special purpose tool in Tiny Core Linux for browsing and selecting applications from online repositories.
- Conary, used by Foresight Linux
- Equo, used by Sabayon Linux
- Tazpkg- for Slitaz- uses lzma compressed archives.
Mac OS X
- fink, for Mac OS X, derives partially from dpkg/apt and partially from ports.
- MacPorts, formerly called DarwinPorts, originated from the OpenDarwin project.
- Homebrew, with close git integration.
- rudix, native, binary package-based way to extend the Unix portion of Mac OS X
- Mac App Store, official digital distribution platform for Mac OS X applications, part of Mac OS X 10.7 and available as an update for Mac OS X 10.6
iOS
- App Store, official digital distribution platform for iOS applications
Android
- Android Market, online software store developed by Google for Android OS devices that license the proprietary Google Application set.
- GetJar, an independent mobile phone application store founded in Lithuania in 2004.
- Amazon Appstore, alternative application store for Android devices.
- SlideME, alternative application store for Android devices.
Microsoft Windows
- Cygwin — a free and open source software repository for the Windows operating system which provides many GNU/Linux tools and an installation tool with package manager.
- Appsnap — a package manager for Windows written in Python released under the GPL.
- Appupdater — a package manager for Windows written in Python released under the GPL.
- Windows-get — a package manager for Windows written in Delphi and PHP released into the public domain.
- GetIt — uses Appsnap, Appupdater, and Windows-get as sources and combines their repositories into one big catalog. Released under the GPL.
- Npackd (previously Windows Package Manager)[1] - a package manager for Windows written in C++ and released under the Apache License 2.0
- Ninite — an automated software installer.
- Steam (software) - a commercial package manager used primarily for games
PC-BSD
- PC-BSD uses files with the .pbi filename extension which, when double-clicked, brings up an installation wizard program. An autobuild system tracks the FreeBSD ports collection and generates new PBI's daily
Solaris
Amiga
- AmiUpdate
- MorphUp (MorphOS only)
- Grunch
Cross platform
- dpkg (mentioned above) is also used as part of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, and on jailbroken iOS as part of Cydia and Icy.
- Image Packaging System, also known as IPS or pkg(5), is a cross platform network repository based system. In addition to being used as the OS level package management system in OpenSolaris and Solaris, the pkg(5) system is available for use by layered applications on Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, OpenSolaris, Solaris and IBM AIX.
- OpenPKG is a cross platform package management system based on the RPM Package Manager. It works on several Unix-based systems, including Linux, BSD and Solaris.
- NetBSD's pkgsrc works on several Unix-like operating systems.
- 0install available for Unix-like and Microsoft Windows operating systems.
- TWW Tools A cross-platform packaging tool that sit on top of native P.M.S.
Sourcecode-based installation / Installing using compile scripts
- Portage and emerge are used by Gentoo Linux. They were inspired by the BSD ports system and use scripts called ebuilds to install software.
- A recipe file contains information on how to download, unpack, compile and install a package in GoboLinux distribution using its Compile tool.
- apt-build is used by distributions which use deb packages, allowing automatic compiling and installation of software in a deb source repository.
- Sorcery is Sourcemage GNU/Linux's bash based package management program that automatically downloads software from their original site and compiles and installs it on the local machine.
- ABS is used by Arch Linux to automate binary packages building from source or even other binary archives, with automatic download and dependency checking.
Hybrid systems
Meta package managers
The following unify package management for several or all Linux and sometimes Unix variants. These, too, are based on the concept of a recipe file.
- Autopackage uses .package files.
- epm, developed by Easy Software Products (creators of CUPS), is a "meta packager", that allows creation of native packages for all Linux and Unix operating systems (.deb, .rpm, .tgz for Linux, pkg for Solaris and *BSD, .dmg for OS X,...) controlled from a single *.list file.
- klik aims to provide an easy way to get software packages for most major distributions without the dependency problems so common in many other package formats.
- Project-Builder.org is a GPL v2 tool designed to help projects developers to easily produce packages for multiple OSs and architectures, on a regular basis and from a single source repository.
- Zero Install installs each package into its own directory and uses environment variables to let each program find its libraries. Package and dependency information is downloaded directly from the software authors' pages in an XML format, similar to an RSS Feed.
- Nix package manager manages packages in a purely functional way.
- PackageKit is a set of utilities and libraries for creating applications that can manage packages across multiple package managers using back-ends to call the correct program.
Proprietary software systems
A wide variety of package management systems are in common use today by proprietary software operating systems, handling the installation of both proprietary and free packages.
- installp is the AIX command to install packages supplied in bff (backup file format) files. It records installed package information in Object Data Manager (ODM) databases.
- Software Distributor is the HP-UX package manager.
- Windows Installer is an engine for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software on modern Microsoft Windows systems.
- In the Microsoft .NET Framework an assembly is a partially compiled code library for use in deployment, versioning and security.
Application-level package managers
References