What is the package management tool of your choice
 

List taken from distrowatch.
Some tools were ommited on purpose by this posts author.

Why pkgtools: More control. A longer post about this is here

My main concern for creating this poll is that i find that package management tools used by most distributions are too complex to the point of being unusable, even after you get familiar with them. I'm talking about apt and rpm. Arch's pacman is a noteable exception.

I like, and voted for, apt. Debian's tools are robust and not hard to use at all. If someone like me who spent years and years on Windows can learn to use a tool like apt and dpkg then it's not hard to use.

I remember the old rpm that Redhat used to use back late last century and I could never get a grip on it. I've used yum a couple of times but it doesn't "feel" quite right to me.

I've read a little bit about pisi and it looks promising so I may give it a go oneday.

I've never used the arch tool simply becaus I've never been able to install arch. For some reason it just doesn't like my older machines and they are the machines I test stuff out on before I use it on my main machine.

EDIT: I'll just add that if it wasn't for Debian (being the basis for Ubuntu etc) I'd still probably be using Windows. I have a copy of the old Red Hat 7 and it would install but never worked after that. Fedora works but doesn't feel right. Debian, and it's derivatives, gave me a viable option to Windows that I could use and learn on and most importantly that worked with very little tweaking from (what was back then) a complete and utter novice.

pkgtools: Very simple and straightforward package format, total control without the hassle of automatic dependency resolution.
On non-Slackware distributions I prefer apt, I am used to it from my Ubuntu/Debian days and the mix of apt-get/apt-cache/apt-file is very powerful.

No apologies to 55020 and sahko,
slapt-get!
Why? Probably familiarity, having learned linux with debian-based distros before switching over to Salix and/or Slackel.
I'll concede good points regarding dep-checking, but won't win me over.

I voted for pkgtools just because in general slackpkg and pkgtools have presented no problems since i have been using slackware, about a year now i guess. I have yet to run into a serious dependency problem with the included software, the nvidia drivers and a kernel update being the exception. Which you can hardly blame on slackware.
I have hated virtually every graphical package management tool i have used.

Even if i am slackware-lover, i like yum. Simple to use and good options

I agree. With the exception of synaptic.

zypper, rpm, apt-get, yum don't matter to me.
It's all the same to me, "under the Hood"

I think the real answer to this is "the one I've used the most and got used to"! I've used 9 of the 10 listed and only had trouble with 2. The man page for pacman was incomplete the last time I tried to use it, and it took two experienced users of Foresight Linux to sort out why I couldn't get Conary to work.

The reason i dislike apt is that it expects me to do the package management for it.
If i am the one who does the management manually i prefer sticking to pkgtools kthx.
See http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=60602 & http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=60608 especially bugsbunny's reply which basically says that apt isn't capable of doing what i want it to do.

This is where apt fails short.
edit: Additionally you have to install a gazillion of other utilities to achieve fundamental functionally, like listing orphans etc.

I can't answer this because there are too many variables. For example, apt with one central repository is quite different than apt with several unofficial repositories.

Ahhh. I think we missed this in the Poll for Members Choice Awards 2012.
Anyways, apt since I use Ubuntu.

But, what about others like dpkg and GUI front-ends like Synaptic

pacman, most definitely. Zypper/Apt are the bane of my existence when I use them (in no small part for the length of apt-get update && apt-get upgrade vs. pacman -Syu)

I voted for Debian's apt, but Arch's pacman tool is great as well.

Pacman, because it is simply the best. It is fast, good dependency handling. It is easy to create your own packages. And if the packager has added a dependeny you don't need, it is very easy to cheat Pacman to think it is installed (by creating an empty package that "provides" that package). It doesn't overwrite files (unless you use -f to force it). In short, Pacman behaves just like a civilized package manager.

Arch ............... PACMAN ....................Keeping my system straight for 2 years. :-)

You overlooked YAST2. One might want to use zypper, but I for one really rarely do.

Portage is by far endlessly superior IMO. it has USE-flags, ACCEPT_LICENSE, brilliant dependency handling, it's easy to write packages -- and as an added bonus everything is compiled on your computer, ensuring trust, security and freedom. it also of course helps performance.

on systems without Portage I ended up using wget and make, because that was the only way I can achieve an even remotely behaving system, besides installing Gentoo Prefix. the current solution is to just use Gentoo on all computers. :-)

My favorite is pkgtool on Slackware.
I use slapt-get or gslapt only when I install GNOME and MATE graphical environment.

Also I use apt-get (or aptitude) and dpkg on CrunchBang, Ubuntu and SolusOS.
Sometimes I use Synaptic.

Definitely portage. Not in the list though... otherwise, apt and pacman aren't bad.

pacman & its friend : yaourt , ftw

could be listed: Portage (Gentoo)

I just use Slackware's CLI commands: installpkg, upgradepkg, removepkg and even makepkg. There is also src2pkg. But none of those options are given.

pkgtool

I can't stand the dependency bureaucracy.

Where’s emerge?

Also, I prefer using CLI commands installpkg or upgradepkg --install-new, removepkg... but only offered pkgtool. I use ./configure, make, make install or sh package_name.SlackBuild and then installpkg or upgradepkg --install-new name_package.txz
Actually, pgtool rarely used, only when I can not uninstall a package with removepkg.
And src2pkg is excellent tool for converting packages.

I like synaptic, and don't like rpm, pkg*, yum, and don't know the other tools.