this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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One of the strongest points of Linux is the package management. In 2025, the world of Linux package management is very varied, with several options available, each with their advantages and trade-offs over the others.

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[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Agreed. The normal pacman CLI does have a comparatively much higher learning curve though compared to e.g. APT. It's not that hard to learn either but when you're scrolling over a long-ass manpage, you do not immediately realize from the headers which whizz by in a flash that -S (alias for --sync) is for installing from repos, -Ss is for searching from repos, -S does not by itself "synchronize" with repos by pulling newest repo package metadata because well that's not what we're "synchronize"-ing with and you have to add the "y" flag, -Su (remember to add "y"!) is for upgrading all packages instead of -U (alias for --upgrade), and -U is for installing a local package. Compare that to the APT/dpkg system's apt install, apt search, apt update, apt upgrade, and dpkg -i.

Admittedly APT does need one to get behind the fact that there are different commands and that "update" and "upgrade" are different, but that's way less to remember (especially since apt is meant to be the interface for everything a user should do) compared to remembering pacman's interesting definitions of database, query, sync, upgrade, and maybe files, while the only definition unlikely to be guessed with APT IIRC is update vs upgrade. You're far more likely to need a pacman cheatsheet than an apt cheatsheet.

But in the end, let's all love libalpm, and the actual code behind that pacman interface.

[–] vinnymac@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Pacman has many of the same issues git does. The DX is lacking, but all of the tools you need are there, and it’s reliable despite the lackluster experience.

[–] Aatube@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 2 days ago

Good thing there are community frontends.

[–] nanook@friendica.eskimo.com 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

@Aatube @LordKitsuna @Tea There are some things I'd like pacman to do automagically that it doesn't, like update the list of archives when they change. Tried to install a package the other day and it kept throwing 404 errors because I had a stale list of archive sites. It didn't tell me that, it didn't fix it automatically.

[–] death_to_carrots@feddit.org 3 points 2 days ago

Always run -Suy before installing new packages. That's how it is supposed to be.