Package managers
 

Which package manager do you use? I have been trying to find an all inclusive poll for linux distribution package managers, but I have not managed to. So please post about the package manager you use, and please justify your answer with reasons of technical nature :-)

I'm not sure where this will lead us---since most people choose a distro and not just a package manager.

That said, the best package manager is definitely pacman!

My long-time 2nd choice---Synaptic---is not on the list.

I'm an RPM guy, can't really say why. It's one of those things that you get used to, and then find other ways of doing things frustrating because they're different. In the RPM world, I like zypper and some of the functionality it provides, but yum is my preference. I find some of the options just irreplaceable...few things work as well as "yum provides" when it comes to manual dependency resolution in my experience.

I personally like Portage for the its high-level configurability (package.mask, package.unmask, package.keywords, the overlay system etc). I must admit that it can be too "geeky" some times, as it doesn` t feature a decent (to me) GUI frontend (yes, I know about Porthole) and compilation takes time, but USE flags are really handy when trying to enhance pergormance.
have also voted for Entropy, which, although nit that configurable is highly automated AND binary.

What's SPM? If it's Slackware Package Manager - pkgtool, then I vote for it.
Second choice- I'm an RPM guy at workplace, so here it goes.

Regards.

Isn't this poll pretty much pointless? Everyone usually uses the package manager that is the one supported by the distribution in use, I would think.

He's using two different titles : Which package manager do you think is best and Which package manager do you use?
One of them will lead to flames and other nowhere.

Regards.

Mostly, it's what you've got used to. I've always used rpm+yum, so that's what I like, although I can see that zypper seems more versatile. I couldn't live with pacman though: "-S" where everyone else uses "install"? Really!

SPM is smart package manager, which is an extension for most native package managers. It `s not a "real" package manager.

" best" ????
there is no best


however
Use what IS THE DEFAULT for the OS

OpenSUSE i mostly use yast ( 25 % of the time zypper in the terminal)
suse is VERY GUI centric

fedora,Cent,RHEL,SL i use yum in the terminal99.999% of the time

"-S" means "sync", and it's really quite logical---you are getting your computer "in sync" with the repository.

The real point is less typing---why would anyone want to type "install", when a simple "S" would do the same thing?? REALLY!!

zsh shell completion. On my Debian system I just type apt-get i and press the Tab key, which completes it to install.

Entropy is quite GUI centric, too. Rigo (GUI app) is much handier than equo (cli). As far as apt is concerned, I used to use ubuntu, and never bothered to use the so-called "software center", as it was much slower than the cli and (although it sounds strange) less intuitive.

I vote for pacman. Ain't seen nothin faster than it! :)

The one that comes with the distro that I happen to be using...anything else would be perverse...not that whether it is perverse, or not, is a decisive argument.

rpm isn't really a package manager in the sense that most of the others listed are. Yes, it is a common package format, but I don't know of anyone who uses rpm directly to install packages for pleasure. That said, there are other managers that use packages in the rpm format, so its not a 'pro- or contra-' rpm point, in the commonly accepted sense.

If you do use rpm packages, you really want to have diff rpms available, to save bandwidth and to get the best speed, but which distros actually make practical use of this I don't know.

I like using Yast, but I can see why some people won't; some things don't quite work the way that I assume that they are going to do, but you get used to it. Most people seem to prefer zypper, but I find Yast more transparent if you are updating packages for which you've got multiple available sources and/or do not necessarily have monotonically numbered versions.

@pixellany
I've always liked synaptic, too. Did you know that PCLOS uses synaptic on rpm? I didn't until today when a review turned up on Distrowatch. A decent KDE and Synaptic/RPM; tempted to give it a go just for that.

Not seen much sign of the reasons of a technical nature (yet).