How to install software on Linux using repositories

This is a beginner guide on how to install software through terminal, using package managers. I will list the most common distributions (according to Distrowatch) and their command to search and install a certain software.

Search

Ubuntu, Debian, Mint (apt)

apt-cache search [software_name]

Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS (yum)

yum search [software_name]

Mandriva, Mageia (urpmi)

urpmi -y [software_name]

openSUSE (ZYpp)

zypper search [software_name]

Arch (pacman)

pacman -Ss [software_name]

Gentoo (portage)

emerge -s [software_name]

Install

Ubuntu, Debian, Mint (apt)

sudo apt-get install [software_name]

Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS (yum)

sudo yum install [software_name]

Mandriva, Mageia (urpmi)

urpmi [software_name]

openSUSE (ZYpp)

zypper install [software_name]

Arch (pacman)

pacman -S [software_name]

Gentoo (portage)

emerge [software_name]

Update 

Ubuntu, Debian, Mint (apt)

sudo apt-get upgrade

Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS (yum)

sudo yum update

Mandriva, Mageia (urpmi)

urpmi—auto-select

openSUSE (ZYpp)

zypper update

Arch (pacman)

pacman -Syu 

Gentoo (portage)

emerge -uD [software_name]

Uninstall

Ubuntu, Debian, Mint (apt)

sudo apt-get remove [software_name]

Fedora, Red Hat, CentOS (yum)

sudo yum remove [software_name]

Mandriva, Mageia (urpmi)

urpme [software_name]

openSUSE (ZYpp)

zypper remove [software_name]

Arch (pacman)

pacman -R [software_name]

Gentoo (portage)

emerge -C [software_name]

For Slackware, there is no package manager settling dependencies for you, and you can use pkgtool or slackpkg. Although, there is also slapt-get which somehow helps getting dependencies.


If you have a distribution that is based an older one, even if not listed here, it will most probably have the need the same commands to install software (e.g. Ubuntu is a Debian-based distribution, so they share the same installation commands).