This is a living document of useful Linux system administration commands and notes.

Ubuntu

Glossary

• PPA (Personal Package Archive). An Ubuntu-specific repository on Launchpad that anyone (often Ubuntu developers or community teams) can use to publish and maintain packages that aren't (or aren't yet) in the official Ubuntu archives.
• Launchpad. A web-based platform developed and maintained by Canonical (the creators of Ubuntu) for collaborative software development, especially focused around the Ubuntu ecosystem.

Ubuntu software packages

• Ubuntu repository components
  • main: Free and open-source software fully supported by Canonical.
  • restricted: Supported software that is not open-source, but still maintained (e.g. NVIDIA drivers).
  • universe: Community-maintained open-source software. Canonical does not guarantee support.
  • multiverse: Software that is not free (e.g. proprietary codecs, games) and not officially supported.
• Ubuntu update pockets
  • release: The base release (e.g., Ubuntu 22.04 GA).
  • updates: Stable updates after release (bug fixes, minor enhancements).
  • security: Security fixes maintained by the Ubuntu Security Team.
  • backports: Newer versions of packages backported from newer Ubuntu releases.
  • proposed: Testing area before updates reach updates or security.

Adding repositories

- Rust tools APT repo
    - https://github.com/emmatyping/apt.cli.rs

dpkg

# search which package provides a specific file
dpkg -S $FILENAME_SEARCH_PATTERN

APT

# Search for a package
apt-cache search $PACKAGE
 
# Show details of a package
apt-cache show $PACKAGE
 
# Use apt-file to list contents of packages
sudo apt-get install apt-file
sudo apt-file update
apt-file list $PACKAGE

AlmaLinux 9+ (RHEL)

dnf

# get access to dnf repoquery, config-manager, and other subcommands
sudo dnf install dnf-plugins-core
 
dnf search "$PACKAGE"
# find packages and which repository they are found in
dnf list available "*$TERM*"
 
# find what files (binaries and libraries) are provided by a package
dnf repoquery -l "$PACKAGE"
 
dnf repoquery --info  "$PACKAGE"
 
# groups
dnf group list --ids
dnf group list --hidden
 
sudo dnf module info $MODULE:$STREAM
# e.g. sudo dnf module info nvidia-driver:570-dkms

PCIe

sudo dnf install pciutils