I’m a Debian user and—like many—I use apt and its associated tools. If you haven’t yet discovered apt here’s a brief summary of some of it and some of its tools which can make your package management even more powerful.

Here is a familiar list for readers: vanilla kernel, custom kernel, debs, rpms, Tgzs, source files, Apt-get,Emerge, Yum, Urpmi, Synaptic, Kpackage, Adept, Kyum, Yumex, Smart, Klik and Autopackage. I could go on but you get the idea.

Well, I didn’t quite make it to all of day 3 of PyCON, but I got a good piece of it, starting with some very nice presentations of scientific software from Enthought and finishing with some questions about the future of Python packaging for GNU/Linux distributions.

It’s this:

1. Download some software that isn’t pre-packaged with your distribution, and try to build it.
2. Er.
3. That’s it!

Installing software on a GNU/Linux system is often as simple asopening a package management interface, selecting with the mouse whichpackages you want installed, and letting the package management systeminstall the wanted packages—plus, any dependencies required forthe package to run. But what can you do if you want to install softwarewhich is not already packaged in your distribution of choice, and youstill want it to be registered in your package management system foreasy maintenance?

Create your own package, of course. Which doesn’t have to be all thathard.