Chapter 6. Software Management
IN THIS CHAPTER
Installing packages
Searching packages
Updating a system
Managing boot environments
Managing a software repository
Building a distribution
Once you've installed an operating system, you'll most likely need to add software that wasn't installed initially. It's also likely that you'll soon want to upgrade your installed software to obtain new functionality or fixes for bugs that are causing problems or that present a security threat. Software management is one of the most common administrative tasks that you'll perform on your system, so it's critical to understand the tools available.
As mentioned in earlier chapters, one of the key features of OpenSolaris is a new software management system: the Image Packaging System (IPS). Chapter 3 presented a basic introduction to the pkg command; in this chapter, you'll learn more about IPS and software management on OpenSolaris.
Note
IPS can be used on operating systems other than OpenSolaris, but such usage is beyond the scope of this book. See the IPS project site at http://opensolaris.org/os/project/pkg for information.
Package Management
Like other operating systems, software for OpenSolaris is distributed in the form of a package. Oversimplified a bit, a package is a bundle of files that is installed to provide a specific function, such as word processing. Once upon a time, software packages were large and standalone, which meant that installing a package was a simple operation of copying the files from ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access