Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal) [LWN.net]

Linux Journal presents a book excerpt on the apt utility from the book Linux Patch Management: Keeping Linux Systems Up to Date by Michael Jang. "One of the popular Linux patch management systems is based on the Advanced Package Tool, known as apt. While it was developed for Debian Linux, it is the standard patch management tool for a number of Debian and Red Hat-based distributions, including Knoppix, Xandros, and even the Lineox rebuild of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. But if you prefer apt, the associated tools can be installed on most Linux distributions. In this chapter, you'll learn the fundamentals of apt, including some of its more useful commands."

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Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

Posted Feb 24, 2006 16:38 UTC (Fri) by garick (guest, #33218) [Link]

Windows world frequently talks about "Patch Management".
Which are the policies for applying vendor patches in a
timely fashion.

as opposed to /usr/bin/patch

Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

Posted Feb 24, 2006 19:35 UTC (Fri) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

apt = Advanced Package Tool

Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

Posted Feb 24, 2006 18:23 UTC (Fri) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]

"Patch management" is a fairly clueless thing to call it. "Patching" is something done by kernel developers and distro maintainers who build and modify software from sources.

In case of security updates etc, Linux vendors provide updated packages, which are upgraded automatically using the vendor tools, be that yast, yum, apt or whatever.

Linux users are never required to futz around with "patching" an application, for crying out loud - the old application is removed and replaced with an updated one, while retaining the configuration settings.

Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

Posted Feb 26, 2006 10:50 UTC (Sun) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

While none of the mainstream Linux package managers does patching, I've sometimes missed it. Especially when using a stable distribution you often download multi-megabyte packages for a singe one line bugfix.

It would be a pretty massive undertaking, but by no means undoable. The distributor could publish binary diffs along with the new packages and the package manager could choose to use the diff when appropriate.

Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

Posted Feb 27, 2006 20:48 UTC (Mon) by anonymous21 (guest, #30106) [Link]

Please, get a clue.

SuSE has done exactly this (distribute patch rpms containing only changed bits, with binary diffs) for at least a year or more now.

Making apt Work for You: A Book Excerpt (Linux Journal)

Posted Feb 27, 2006 23:18 UTC (Mon) by einstein (subscriber, #2052) [Link]

True, suse online update uses diff rpms, but it's all transparent to the user - in any case the user is never forced to deal with patches, or even to know that there is such a thing as a patch.