3.21 Glossary

The following terms will be useful to you throughout this book and in general when you’re talking about Debian.

Package.

A file that contains everything needed to install, de-install, and run a particular program. The program that handles packages is dpkg. dselect is a front-end to dpkg. Experienced users often use dpkg to install or remove a package.

Package names.

All package names have the form xxxxxxxxxxx.deb. Sample package names include the following:

• efax_08a-1.deb
• lrzsz_0.12b-1.deb
• mgetty_0.99.2-6.deb
• minicom_1.75-1.deb
• term_2.3.5-5.deb
• uucp_1.06.1-2.deb
• uutraf_1.1-1.deb
• xringd_1.10-2.deb
• xtel_3.1-2.deb