


before even thinking about using them alongside. One should be quite familiar with packages and package managers, how they work, etc. Though it is possible to install other package managers on Ubuntu (else they wouldn't be in the repositories), this is not to be recommended for the unexperienced user. Managing your local installation takes place using graphical frontends like Synaptic and Adept, or command-line tools like apt-get, aptitude and dpkg. Gentoo's portage packages usually compile from source, Arch uses its own binary package format, Redhat uses RPM as packaging system - and Debian as well as Ubuntu and Linux Mint use Debian Packages (. Gentoo, Arch, Redhat - they all use different packaging systems. A package manager is central to a specific distribution.
