If you’ve hopped between Linux distributions as much as I have, you know that each major family of distros introduces you to a different package manager. At first, it can feel a bit daunting (apt on Debian/Ubuntu, dnf on RHEL/Fedora, pacman on Arch, and zypper on openSUSE), but these tools all serve the same purpose of installing and updating software.
After using Linux for years (across everything from Debian to Arch-based systems), I’ve grown comfortable with all of them. Even niche distros like Slackware, Gentoo, and Void. In this post, I’ll break down the major package managers, how they differ, and what it’s like to use each one. We’ll also touch on the universal package formats (Snap and Flatpak) that aim to work across distributions, and lastly mention a few niche package management systems. Let’s dive in!
Pacman has fucked me so many times, I will likely never use Arch again. rpm-ostree has always had my back.
Sounds more likely that AUR fucked you. Which isn’t pacman. I’ve often found people who hate “pacman” usually just hosed their system with the AUR
I’m very choosy with AUR. I know people hail it as the holy grail but the lack of vetting makes it “delicate”.
This is, in the best of cases, what’s being packaged hasn’t been properly tested. In the worst, you really need to read the package file and understand it enough to confirm you can trust the sources or risk being surprised.
Oh I didn’t know ostree was used by rpm, I thought it was made from scratch from the flatpak project just like bwrap is.