Red Hat and Debian GNU/Linux Package Managers
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Package States and Selection States
The possible states that a package can be in are:
- config-files
-
Only the configuration files for the package are present on the system.
- half-configured
-
The package is unpacked and configuration was started but not completed.
- half-installed
-
Installation was started but not completed.
- installed
-
The package is unpacked and configured.
- not-installed
-
The package is not installed.
- unpacked
-
The package is unpacked but not configured.
The possible package selection states are:
- deinstall
-
The package has been selected for deinstallation (i.e., for removal of everything but configuration files).
- install
-
The package has been selected for installation.
- purge
-
The package has been selected to be purged (i.e., for removal of everything including the configuration files).
Package Flags
There are two possible package flags that can be set for a package. They are:
- hold
-
The package is not to be handled by dpkg, unless forced with the --force-hold option.
- reinst-required
-
The package is broken and needs to be reinstalled. Such a package cannot be removed, unless forced with the --force-reinstreq option.
Scripts
In addition to the commands described in the next subsection, several shell and Perl scripts are included with the package manager for use in building packages:
- dpkg-buildpackage
-
Help automate package building. Shell script.
- dpkg-distaddfile
-
Add an entry for a file to debian/files. Perl script.
- dpkg-genchanges
-
Generate an upload control file from the information in an unpacked, built, source tree and the files it has generated. Perl script.
- dpkg-gencontrol
-
Read information from an unpacked source tree and display a binary package control file on standard output. Perl script.
- dpkg-name
-
Rename Debian packages to their full package names. Shell script.
- dpkg-parsechangelog
-
Read and parse the changelog from an unpacked source tree and write the information to standard output in machine-readable form. Perl script.
- dpkg-scanpackages
-
Create a Packages file from a tree of binary packages. The Packages file is used by dselect to provide a list of packages available for installation. Perl script.
- dpkg-shlibdeps
-
Calculate shared library dependencies for named executables. Perl script.
- dpkg-source
-
Pack and unpack Debian source archives. Perl script.
