Managing Software With Command Line Tools; Using Zypper - Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE DESKTOP 11 - ADMINISTRATION GUIDE 17-03-2009 Administration Manual

5
Managing Software with
Command Line Tools
This chapter describes Zypper and RPM, two command line tools for managing software.

5.1 Using Zypper

Zypper is a command line tool for installing and updating packages. Zypper's syntax
is similar to that of rug. In contrast to rug, zypper does not require the zmd daemon to
run behind the scenes. For more information about rug compatibility, see man zypper,
section "COMPATIBILITY WITH RUG". It is especially useful for accomplishing
remote software management tasks or managing software from shell scripts.
zypper has a help overview built in:
zypper help
5.1.1 General Usage
The general syntax of zypper is:
zypper [global-options] command [command-options] [arguments] ...
The components enclosed in brackets are not required. The simplest way to execute
zypper is to type its name followed by a command. For example, to apply all needed
patches to the system type:
zypper patch

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