When comparing RPM (RPM Package Manager) vs DPKG (Debian Package Manager), the Slant community recommends DPKG (Debian Package Manager) for most people. In the question“What are the best Linux package managers?” DPKG (Debian Package Manager) is ranked 3rd while RPM (RPM Package Manager) is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose DPKG (Debian Package Manager) is:
DKPG has one of the best multiarch support you can easily add new architectures with dpkg --add-architecture $ARCH to install foreign architectures.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to create packages on non-rpm based distros
This makes maintenance and support easy.
Pro Follows the UNIX philosophy
It only does one thing and that well.
Pro Part of LSB
It is part of the Linux standard base.
Pro Very easy to create packages
It is very easy to create packages for it, you just need a small spec file.
Pro Standard archives
RPM packages are simple cpio archives that have additional compression support.
Pro Much more advanced than apt
Pro Great multiarch support
DKPG has one of the best multiarch support you can easily add new architectures with dpkg --add-architecture $ARCH to install foreign architectures.
Pro Follows the UNIX philosophy
DPKG and it frontends follow strictly the UNIX philosophy that one package should do one thing well.
eg:
Dpkg: does simple package management
APT and aptitude : adds repository and dependency tracking
debconf: does configuration
synaptic: allows mouse interaction to all apt/aptitude options
Pro De facto package manager / widely used
Due the popularity of Ubuntu, Debian and Linux Mint it is almost certain that you find the package you want as a pre-built deb package.
Pro Fast
DPKG isn't as bloated as other package managers since it is only made for local package management.
Pro Plenty of frontends
You can use apt, aptitude, cupt, debdelta or apt-build on the terminal.
Pro Very easy to create packages
There are plenty of helpers to easily create packages.
You just need to create 5 files: source/format, compat, rules, control & changelog and run dpkg-buildpackage.
Pro User interaction
It is possible to interact/ask questions to all pre and post install scripts. This makes it possibe to add questions for package configuration or to display EULA/License screens that have to be accepted before installation.
Pro Standard archives
Deb packages are simple ar archives with additional tar, lzma, bzip, gzip support.
Pro You can create deb packages on almost all linux distributions
This makes maintenance and support easy.
Cons
Con No interaction
RPM does not support user interaction upon install.
Con Many forks
Currently there exist rpmv4, rpmv5 and distribution specific forks like Mandrake's urpm.
Con Plenty of different frontends
Almost any rpm distro has its own frontend for rpm there is zypper, yum, apt-rpm, dnf, poldek and many more.
Con Does not work well with packagekit
Since packagekit was developed with rpm in mind it does not support all dpkg features.
Con Package creation needs more than one file
A debian package needs at least the following files to build it with debhelper
debian/source/format - deb format
debian/changelog - changelog file with version number and dae etc.
debian/compat - debian package version
debian/control - package information, dependencies & co
debian/copyright - license information
debian/rules - the make file to build the package
However the really important files are control, changelog and rules all other are generic.