Streamlining Software Installation with PackageKit

“Software packaging is one of Linux greatest strengths and
weaknesses. If all or most of your software comes from your Linux
distribution, managing software installs, updates and removal are a
piece of cake. But, it can be a fragmented landscape that is
confusing for users and annoying for developers and vendors.
PackageKit is an attempt to solve some of that.

“All of the distros have package tools already, right? So why
bother with another toolkit? On Ubuntu you can use APT or the
front-end tools to manage packages; on Fedora you have RPM and Yum;
openSUSE has RPM and Zypper; and Mandriva has RPM and URPMI. Lots
of great tools to work with packages. Well, that’s sort of the
problem. All of the distros have their own toolkits. You can
install software using various command line tools and GUI
utilities. You have RPMs and Debian packages, Slackware packages,
Conary, and so on. Each of the solutions has its advantages, but
the problem is that they all differ.

“This makes it non-trivial to manage software, and it makes it
very complex to write documentation. If you’re shipping software
for all the major distributions, you may have to explain several
ways of installing software.”

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