Dpkg: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

dpkg is the base of the Debian package management system. It was created by Ian Jackson in 1993. dpkg is similar to RPM, as it is used to install, remove, and provide information about .deb packages.

dpkg itself is a low level tool; additional higher level front ends are required to fetch packages from remote locations or resolve complex conflicts in the package dependencies. Debian provides apt for this purpose.

The dpkg tools

Debian has a series of tools that have to be called to construct a package. They are the following:

• dpkg-source packs and unpacks the source files of a Debian package.
• dpkg-deb packs and unpacks binary packages
• dpkg-gencontrol reads the information from an unpacked Debian tree source and generates a binary package control package, creating an entry for this in Debian/files.
• dpkg-shlibdeps calculates the dependencies of runs with respect to libraries.
• dpkg-genchanges reads the information from an unpacked Debian tree source that once constructed creates a control file (.changes).
• dpkg-buildpackage is a control script that can be used to construct the package automatically.
• dpkg-distaddfile adds a file input to debian/files.
• dpkg-parsechangelog reads the changes file (changelog) of an unpacked Debian tree source and creates a conveniently prepared output with the information for those changes.