RPM

• RPM is the standard packaging system used on most Linux distributions
• Capable of handling both source code and compiled applications
• The original sources are combined with a SPEC file, which provides
• information about the software contained within (version numbers, other necessary software, incompatible software, compilation proceedures, installation proceedures, upgrade proceedures, copyright information, and more.
• By `rebuilding' the SPEC file, bianry and soruce packages are created RPM 3 is the current Linux standard for installting software, as anninted by the Linux Standard base. This will likely be updated to 4 as soon the the book comes output

APT

• APT is a tool which runs of top of packaging systems (like rpm or dpkg)
• It is not a packaging system in itself
• Basically a front end to other tools
• Can fetch software over a variety of means (http, cdrom, nfs, etc) check for dependencies, fetch those (and their dependencies, and install the lot.
• Uses the same mechanisms as the underlying packaging system to install software (in the RPM version, this means librpm an the rpm bianry)

I manage a very large (more than three thousand Linux (RPM) packages from across nine different package groups) APT package repository that's used to deploy software on machines within Cybersource. I'm reasonably experiences in creating packaged applications, especially for the purposes of system administration, using this excellent package system to automate many system administration tasks.

If you're using Red Hat Linux, you should be using APT to install software. here's why:

• Since APT uses RPM and libRPM to install software, it acts the same way RPM does, ensuring your system is installed in a standard manner.
• Like Up2date, urpmi, and grab, APT grabs and installs whetever depndencies are necessary to install or uninstall a given piece of software
• Unlike other systems, however, its designed to keep the system in a working state at all times - the APT tool will warn users if the packaging system becomes broken (by missing packages relied upon by other apps, packages that are installed along with others that obsolete them, etc). APT also comes witha mechanism to fix these problems.
• Unlike Red Hat's up2date, it allows local system administrators to publish their own repositories to APT clients. There are already many publically available APT respositories for Red Hat 7.2, including the especially noteworthy Freshrpms.