What is a DEB and what is a RPM?
Wednesday, November 10th, 2010 at
14:56
Still new to linux and ubuntu.
Tagged with: Linux
Filed under: rpm
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On Windows, when you run Setup.exe to install a program, the installer extracts all the files that the program needs and puts them in the right places for the program to work. Then it updates a few settings, menus, etc.
On linux, its pretty much the same thing that happens. It uses different kinds of files that need to go to different places, but the principle is the same. DEB and RPM are both, in essence, just compressed folders that have all the different files you need to install that package.
What makes Linux different from Windows, is that Linux ‘remembers’ everything that you install. It remembers what packages (DEB/RPM) you installed, and which files belong to which packages. This has a lot of advantages, but I’m not going to get into that right now…
The difference between DEB and RPM is that the DEB file tells Debian based linux distributions how to install the files it has inside, while RPM tell Red Hat based distributions how to install the files that it has inside.
DEB = Debian Software Install Package
RPM = Redhat Software Install Package
Both are package/software types. DEB for debian disrtibutions like debian 5.0, ubuntu etc & RPM for redhat distributions like Redhat Enterprise 5, Fedora, CentOS etc.