dpkg is the

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

at the base of the package management system in the free operating system

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

and its numerous derivatives. dpkg is used to install, remove, and provide information about .deb packages. dpkg (Debian Package) itself is a low-level tool. APT (Advanced Package Tool), a higher-level tool, is more commonly used than dpkg as it can fetch packages from remote locations and deal with complex package relations, such as dependency resolution. Frontends for APT, like

aptitude An aptitude is a component of a competence to do a certain kind of work at a certain level. Outstanding aptitude can be considered "talent", or "skill". Aptitude is inborn potential to perform certain kinds of activities, whether physical or ...

( ncurses) and synaptic (

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both Free software, free and ...

), are used for their friendlier interfaces. The Debian package "dpkg" provides the dpkg program, as well as several other programs necessary for run-time functioning of the packaging system, including dpkg-deb, dpkg-split, dpkg-query, dpkg-statoverride, dpkg-divert and dpkg-trigger. It also includes the programs such as update-alternatives and start-stop-daemon. The Debian package "dpkg-dev" includes the numerous build tools described below.

History

The first attempt at a package management system for Linux was possibly the development of Stop Alop by Greg Wettstein at the Roger Maris Cancer Center in Fargo, North Dakota. It provided inspiration for the creation of dpkg. dpkg was originally created by Ian Murdock in January 1994 as a

Shell script A shell script is a computer program designed to be run by a Unix shell, a command-line interpreter. The various dialects of shell scripts are considered to be command languages. Typical operations performed by shell scripts include file manipu ...

. Matt Welsh, Carl Streeter and Ian Murdock then rewrote it in

Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language". Perl was developed ...

, and then later the main part was rewritten in C by Ian Jackson in 1994. The name ''dpkg'' was originally a shortening of "Debian package", but the meaning of that phrase has evolved significantly, as dpkg the software is orthogonal to the deb package format as well as the Debian Policy Manual which defines how Debian packages behave in Debian.

Development tools

dpkg-dev contains a series of development tools required to unpack, build and upload Debian source packages. These include: * dpkg-source packs and unpacks the source files of a Debian package. * dpkg-gencontrol reads the information from an unpacked Debian tree source and generates a binary package control package, creating an entry for this in Debian/files. * dpkg-shlibdeps calculates the dependencies of runs with respect to libraries. * dpkg-genchanges reads the information from an unpacked Debian tree source that once constructed creates a control file (.changes). * dpkg-buildpackage is a control script that can be used to construct the package automatically. * dpkg-distaddfile adds a file input to debian/files. * dpkg-parsechangelog reads the changes file (changelog) of an unpacked Debian tree source and creates a conveniently prepared output with the information for those changes.

dselect

The dpkg source package also contains dselect, a frontend software.

install-info

The install-info program used to be included in the dpkg software package, but was later removed as it became developed and distributed separately, as part of GNU Texinfo.

wpkg

wpkg was created as a dpkg look-alike that would run under the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

operating system. It retained .deb file format compatibility. It subsequently evolved to include functionality similar to parts of the APT suite, improved repository management, distribution management and was ported to

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X, *nix or *NIX) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Uni ...

systems. , the most recent release of the software was in 2015.

References

External links

*
Manual page on the Debian Project website

Mailing list

{{Debian Free software programmed in C Software using the GNU General Public License