PackageKit
| PackageKit | |
|---|---|
 | |
 PackageKit is a system daemon, various graphical front-ends are available | |
| Original author | Richard Hughes |
| Developers | Richard Hughes, Matthias Klumpp, multiple backend maintainers |
| Release | 2007 |
| Stable release | 1.4.0
/ 9 September 2026 |
| Written in | C, C++, Python |
| Operating system | Linux |
| Type | Package management system |
| License | GNU General Public License |
| Website | www |
| Repository | |
PackageKit is a free and open-source suite of software applications designed to provide a consistent and high-level abstraction layer for a number of different package management systems. PackageKit was created by Richard Hughes in 2007, and first embedded in an operating system as a default application in May 2008, with the release of Fedora 9.
The suite is cross-platform, though it is primarily targeted at Linux distributions which follow the interoperability standards set out by the freedesktop.org group. It uses the software libraries provided by the D-Bus and Polkit projects to handle inter-process communication and privilege negotiation respectively.
PackageKit seeks to introduce automatic updates without having to authenticate as root, fast-user-switching, warnings translated into the correct locale, common upstream GNOME and KDE tools and one software over multiple Linux distributions.