The dpkg utility works at a layer lower than the APT utilities do. APT uses dpkg behind the scenes to manage software on your Ubuntu system. APT and dpkg work similar to the way yum and rpm do on Red Hat–based Linux distributions.

Dpkg is the Ubuntu package manager dpkg is a medium-level tool to install, build, remove and manage Ubuntu packages. The primary and more user-friendly front-end for dpkg is dselect.dpkg itself is controlled entirely via command line parameters,which consist of exactly one action and zero or more options.

"This article will show how you can rebuild any debian package. You might need to rebuild a package for various reasons: add/remove some compilation options, make some changes to the sources, or compile a newer version from testing/sid into stable, etc. Regardless of your reason, this can be done very easy using debian tools..."

The source package format 3.0 (quilt) has a neat feature for this. Instead of unconditionally using debian/patches/series to look up patches, dpkg-source first tries to use debian/patches/vendor.series (where vendor is ubuntu, debian, etc.). Note that dpkg-source does not stack patches from multiple series file, it uses a single series file, the first that exists.

Five of the top 10 most downloaded distributions on Distrowatch use the Debian package system. It has developed a rich infrastructure of utilities -- not just the core commands apt-get and dpkg, but also such less well-known commands as apt-cache, apt-spy, and apt-listbugs.

"Have you ever had to make a one-line correction (or customization) in a big package? If so how did you manage it? The obvious way is to rebuild a package and serve it locally, but is there some other approach? ..."

Last week, in Part One of this Debian Package Primer, I gave you an introduction to the super cow powers of apt-get, Debian’s package management system. This week, in Part Two, you’ll check out aptitude, which is an easy to use front-end for apt-get. It has menus, shortcuts and a package status dashboard that keeps you aware of your installed packages and how many you have yet to install.

If you happen to have .rpm file package that you would like to install on your Ubuntu machine, you will have to convert that file to .deb first for it to be installed. How will you do it? --Use the package converter application called “alien”.

If you do your Debian package management from the command line, you are probably aware of utilities that search the cache of available programs, such as apt-cache, apt-file, and dpkg. Possibly, too, you have cursed the limited search information available in graphical interfaces like Synaptic, which does not extend much beyond searching for the description, name, versions, and dependencies.