[GTALUG] Package Manager upgrades on Linux

[Giles Orr]

This is curiosity on my part and not meant to start a massive debate.
I apologize should it do so.

I started using Linux with Slackware.  That wasn't really a "managed
package system" at the time - you just unpacked tarballs.  I moved to
RedHat, where "rpm" was a huge improvement in package management over
Slackware.  But rpm was subject to "dependency hell," which wasn't
much fun.  I switched to Debian, where I was impressed by the superior
"apt-get".  These days I use both Debian and Fedora.  Debian has moved
to "apt" (not terribly different from "apt-get"), while RedHat/Fedora
first came up with "yum" (painfully slow, but eliminated "dependency
hell"), and then moved on to "dnf" which I'd say is almost as fast as
"apt" - even though it's mostly an abstraction layer on top of "rpm"
(as was "yum").

Just recently I started using Arch on one of my machines.  Arch is a
rolling release, and has fairly high package turn-over.  If I leave
the machine alone for a couple weeks and tell it to do a full upgrade
(their package manager is called "pacman"), it usually comes back with
"have to download 650M packages."  My reaction the first couple times
was "Damn, I'd better go get a coffee!"  Only to find that by the time
I stood up and started heading for the door ... it was finished.
"apt" and "dnf" should hide their heads in shame.  Fedora and Debian
could learn a hell of a lot from whatever pacman is doing to fly
through package installations perhaps four times faster than their
package managers.

So my questions (yes, there are questions here): does anyone know of
other package management systems?  I suppose I'm thinking of
OS-specific ones rather than flatpak or snap.  How fast are those
other systems relative to those already mentioned?  And do we have any
full-time Arch users on the list?

Contrary to this discussion, my decision of what Linux distro to
install and use isn't primarily based on the package manager's speed.
Installing Arch in 2021 was a lot like installing Slackware in 1998: I
had to research and type dozens of commands in a shell just to get a
functional system, and at that I'm not entirely sure I did all the
security stuff right - which is more than a little alarming.  But I
think they have the best documentation of any distro in existence
(which made that tricky install possible), and a really excellent
package manager.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr at gmail.com