Before jumping into instructions for using the most popular package management tools, I'll acknowledge that there are some Linux users who dislike package management. They might propose some of the following downsides:

• Binaries built for a specific system perform better
• Resolving package dependencies is a headache
• Package database corruption can render a system unmaintainable
• Packages are hard to create

There is some truth to these statements, but the general consensus among Linux users is that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Additionally, each stumbling block listed above has a corresponding rebuttal: Multiple packages can be built to optimize for different systems; package managers can be augmented to resolve dependencies automatically; databases can be rebuilt based on other files; and the initial effort expended in creating a package is mitigated by the ease of upgrading or removing that package later.