Book Image

The Software Developer's Guide to Linux

By : David Cohen, Christian Sturm
5 (2)
Book Image

The Software Developer's Guide to Linux

5 (2)
By: David Cohen, Christian Sturm

Overview of this book

Developers are always looking to raise their game to the next level, yet most are completely lost when it comes to the Linux command line. This book is the bridge that will take you to the next level in your software development career. Most of the skills in the book can be immediately put to work to make you a more efficient developer. It’s written specifically for software engineers, not Linux system administrators, so each chapter will equip you with just enough theory to understand what you’re doing before diving into practical commands that you can use in your day-to-day work as a software developer. As you work through the book, you’ll quickly absorb the basics of how Linux works while you get comfortable moving around the command line. Once you’ve got the core skills, you’ll see how to apply them in different contexts that you’ll come across as a software developer: building and working with Docker images, automating boring build tasks with shell scripts, and troubleshooting issues in production environments. By the end of the book, you’ll be able to use Linux and the command line comfortably and apply your newfound skills in your day-to-day work to save time, troubleshoot issues, and be the command-line wizard that your team turns to.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
18
Other Books You May Enjoy
19
Index

Install Software Packages

Different Linux distributions use different package managers, and although their syntaxes are just different enough to be annoying, they all operate in an almost identical fashion. Common package managers include:

  • homebrew (Mac OS X)
  • apt (reliably found on Ubuntu and Debian-based systems, even minimal ones that don’t have aptitude installed)
  • pacman (Arch)
  • apk (Alpine)

Your workflow will usually be “search for package” and “install package.” Sometimes you’ll want to remove a package.

Update your local cache of repository state

  • homebrew: brew update
  • apt: apt update
  • pacman: pacman -Sy
  • apk: apk update

Upgrade all packages that have available updates

  • homebrew: brew upgrade
  • apt: apt upgrade
  • pacman: pacman -Syu
  • apk: apk upgrade

Search for package

  • homebrew: brew search $PACKAGENAME
  • apt: apt search $PACKAGENAME
  • pacman: pacman -Ss $PACKAGENAME
  • apk: apk search $PACKAGENAME

Install package

  • homebrew: brew install ...