Zypper is a command line package manager, like the famous apt-get for Debian / Ubuntu. I got introduced to zypper by a top OpenSUSE guy, while we tested the 11.1 build 5 a few weeks before it was due. I didn’t get very much from him as his fingers move too quickly and by the time I read zypper on his command line interface, he was already typing his 3rd or 4rth consecutive command. Well feeling rather humbled by the whole experience I decided to give zypper a go once I got OpenSUSE 11.1 installed on my laptop. It’s a great and intuitive package manager. Here is a short list of the commands you will use the most. (you have to run it as superuser so I will use sudo just before the command)
- $ sudo zypper se (or search) mysql (to search for the mysql package)
- $ sudo zypper in (or install) Apache2 (to install the Apache 2 package)
- $ sudo rm (or remove) mplayer (to remove the mplayer package)
- $ sudo zypper help search (look for help on a specific command, in this case the command is Search)
- $ sudo zypper in yast* (the * inidicates that any package that are related to that package starting with the same name. a good example is installing the libraries for apache2_mod_* )
For a more in-depth tutorial visit the OpenSUSE reference for zypper.
