PackageKit
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PackageKit is a system daemon, various graphical front-ends are available
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| Original author(s) | Richard Hughes |
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| Initial release | 2007 |
| Stable release |
1.1.5 / 17 January 2017
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| Repository | github |
| Development status | Active |
| Written in | C, C++, Python |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Type | Package management system |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | www |
PackageKit is a free and open-source suite of software applications designed to provide a consistent and high-level front end for a number of different package management systems. PackageKit was created by Richard Hughes in 2007, and first introduced into an operating system as a default application in May 2008 with the release of Fedora 9.
The suite is cross-platform, though it is primarily targeted at Linux distributions which follow the interoperability standards set out by the freedesktop.org group. It uses the software libraries provided by the D-Bus and Polkit projects to handle inter-process communication and privilege negotiation respectively.
Since 1995, package formats have been around, since 2000 there have been dependency solvers and auto-downloaders as a layer on top of them around, and since 2004 graphical front-ends. PackageKit seeks to introduce automatic updates without having to authenticate as root, fast-user-switching, warnings translated into the correct locale, common upstream GNOME and KDE tools and one software over multiple Linux distributions.
PackageKit itself runs as a system-activated daemon, packagekitd, which abstracts out differences between the different systems. A library called libpackagekit allows other programs to interact with PackageKit.
Features include:
Graphical front-ends for PackageKit include:
GNOME Software uses GTK+
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