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Mastering Software Package Management with Yum and DNF on CentOS and RHEL

Linux Journal
3 months ago
by George Whittaker Introduction

Software package management is an essential skill for any system administrator working with Linux distributions such as CentOS and RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). Managing software efficiently ensures that your system remains secure, up-to-date, and optimized for performance.

CentOS and RHEL utilize two primary package managers: Yum (Yellowdog Updater, Modified) and DNF (Dandified Yum). While Yum has been the default package manager in older versions (CentOS/RHEL 7 and earlier), DNF replaces Yum starting from CentOS 8 and RHEL 8, offering improved performance, dependency resolution, and better memory management.

In this guide, we will explore every aspect of software package management using Yum and DNF, from installing, updating, and removing packages to managing repositories and handling dependencies.

Understanding Yum and DNF What is Yum?

Yum (Yellowdog Updater, Modified) is a package management tool that helps users install, update, and remove software packages on CentOS and RHEL systems. It manages software dependencies automatically, ensuring that required libraries and dependencies are installed along with the package.

What is DNF?

DNF (Dandified Yum) is the next-generation package manager introduced in CentOS 8 and RHEL 8. It provides faster package management, better memory efficiency, and improved dependency resolution compared to Yum. Although Yum is still available in newer versions, it acts as a symbolic link to DNF.

Key advantages of DNF over Yum:

  • Improved performance and speed

  • Reduced memory usage

  • Better dependency management

  • Enhanced security and modularity

Checking and Updating Package Repositories

Before installing or updating software, it is good practice to ensure that the system package repositories are up to date.

Using Yum (CentOS/RHEL 7 and Earlier) yum check-update yum update Using DNF (CentOS/RHEL 8 and Later) dnf check-update dnf update

The update command refreshes package lists and ensures that installed software is up to date.

Installing Software Packages

Software packages can be installed from official or third-party repositories.

Using Yum yum install package-name Using DNF dnf install package-name

Example:

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George Whittaker

Nokia is Putting the First Cellular Network On the Moon

Slashdot
3 months ago
An anonymous reader shares a report: Later this month, Intuitive Machines, the private company behind the first commercial lander that touched down on the moon, will launch a second lunar mission from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The plan is to deploy a lander, a rover, and hopper to explore a site near the lunar south pole that could harbor water ice, and to put a communications satellite on lunar orbit. But the mission will also bring something that's never been installed on the moon or anywhere else in space before -- a fully functional 4G cellular network. Point-to-point radio communications, which need a clear line of sight between transmitting and receiving antennas, have always been a backbone of both surface communications and the link back to Earth, starting with the Apollo program. Using point-to-point radio in space wasn't much of an issue in the past because there never have been that many points to connect. Usually, it was just a single spacecraft, a lander, or a rover talking to Earth. And they didn't need to send much data either. "They were based on [ultra high frequency] or [very high frequency] technologies connecting a small number of devices with relatively low data throughput," says Thierry Klein, president of Nokia Bell Labs Solutions Research, which was contracted by NASA to design a cellular network for the moon back in 2020.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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