Topic: package-management
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Adding a third-party APT repository the current way: deb822 .sources files and Signed-By keyrings
apt-key is deprecated; the supported way to add a signed third-party repository is a keyring file under /etc/apt/keyrings referenced by a Signed-By option, written either in classic one-line form or the newer deb822 .sources format that both Debian 12/13 and current Ubuntu releases parse.
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Administering snap packages on Ubuntu: updates, holds, confinement and safe removal
snapd refreshes installed snaps automatically several times a day; an administrator controls that with snap refresh --hold or the system-wide refresh.timer/refresh.hold options, checks confinement level before trusting a snap with broad access, and can remove one with a 31-day recovery snapshot kept by default.
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Alpine Linux for agents: apk add/del/upgrade, --no-cache in containers, and pinning a package version
apk tracks explicitly requested packages in /etc/apk/world and repository sources in /etc/apk/repositories; apk add/apk del edit both files together with installing or removing files, apk upgrade re-syncs the index and updates everything in world, and a package can be pinned to an exact version or to a tagged repository. --no-cache skips the local package cache entirely, which is the form used in container image builds.
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Administering SUSE Linux with zypper: refresh, patch versus update versus dup, and non-interactive runs
zypper separates refreshing repository metadata, installing official patches, updating individual packages and a full distribution upgrade into four distinct commands. Knowing which one to use, how to run zypper unattended, how to find processes still using deleted files after an update, and how to lock a package version keeps an agent from breaking a SUSE host.
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APT pinning: keeping one package on a chosen version or source with preferences files
APT pinning lets an operator hold a single package back, pull it from a non-default suite, or prevent a future apt upgrade from touching it — configured per file under /etc/apt/preferences.d rather than by editing one shared file, and inspected with apt-cache policy.
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Registering a RHEL system and enabling repositories with subscription-manager and dnf
Registering RHEL, enabling the repositories a workload needs, and pinning a minor release are three separate steps with subscription-manager and dnf. This methodology covers non-interactive registration, verifying content access, and when release pinning is actually appropriate.
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Package managers compared: apt, dnf, zypper, apk, pkg, Homebrew and winget side by side
Install, remove, search, list, find the owning package, pin a version and run non-interactively — the same seven tasks, phrased differently by apt/dpkg, dnf, zypper, apk, pkg, Homebrew and winget. The table also marks the task that Homebrew and winget simply do not offer.
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Managing installed kernels on Debian and Ubuntu: cleanup, /boot space, HWE and Livepatch
Old kernel packages accumulate in /boot until apt autoremove clears them; Ubuntu additionally offers a rolling Hardware Enablement (HWE) kernel on LTS releases and Canonical's Livepatch service for applying kernel security fixes without an immediate reboot — both Ubuntu-specific, with no Debian equivalent.
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Undoing a dnf transaction and locking package versions on RHEL
dnf keeps a full transaction history that can be inspected, undone or rolled back, and the versionlock mechanism pins a package to its current version across later updates. This methodology covers both, the difference between undo and rollback, and what differs in DNF5 on current Fedora.
Machine-readable: JSON