Skip to content
EntityQ305892· pop 31· linked from 229 articles

dpkg is the software at the base of the package management system in the free operating system Debian and its many derivatives. dpkg is used to install, remove, and provide information about .deb packages.

Key facts

Software.title
dpkg
Software.author
Ian Murdock
Software.developer
The Debian Project
Software.programming language
C, C++, Perl
Software.operating system
Unix-like
Software.language count
42
Software.genre
Package manager
Software.license
GPLv2

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
free software
Part of
Debian
Named after
Debian
Developer
Ian Murdock
Official website
www.dpkg.org
Image
Screenshot-dpkg-reconfigure-locales-default-debian-etch-el.png
Show 11 more facts
publication date
1994-01-01
used by
dselect
Commons category
Dpkg
topic's main category
Category:Dpkg
software version identifier
1.23.2
inception
1994-01-00
programmed in
Perl
source code repository URL
git.dpkg.org
IRC channel URL
irc://irc.debian.org/debian-dpkg
Sources (8)

via Wikidata · CC0

~4 min read

Encyclopedic overview

8 sections
Contents
  • History
  • Development tools
  • dselect
  • install-info
  • {{Anchor|wpkg}}wpkg
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

dpkg is the software at the base of the package management system in the free operating system Debian and its many derivatives. dpkg is used to install, remove, and provide information about .deb packages.

dpkg (Debian Package) itself is a low-level tool. Advanced Package Tool (APT), a higher-level tool, is more commonly used than dpkg as it can fetch packages from remote locations and deal with complex package relations, such as dependency resolution. Frontends for APT, like aptitude (ncurses) and synaptic (GTK), are used for their friendlier interfaces.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “dpkg” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.