Since Fedora 22, DNF (Dandified Yum) has replaced Yum to become the default software package manager of the Fedora distribution. Considering the demonstration effect of Fedora, it is just a matter of time before DNF becomes fashionable on other RPM-based distributions. Compared with Yum, DNF: - achieves faster dependency resolving speed with less memory usage, - provides specific and solid Python API documentation, - runs in both Python 2 and Python 3 environments, and - has similar synopsis and usage. Besides working on all of the RPM-based distributions, DNF can also co-exist with its predecessor, Yum. So you can already pilot DNF on CentOS or other RPM-based distributions without concerns. ## Prerequisites All of the instructions in this tutorial are geared to the needs of a `sudo` user on a Vultr CentOS 7 server instance. You need to log in as a `sudo` user to test the following commands. For instructions on how to create such a user, see [this Vultr tutorial](https://docs.vultr.com/hot-backups-with-percona-xtrabackup-on-the-one-click-wordpress-app). ## Install DNF on CentOS You need to setup the EPEL Yum repo before you can install DNF. sudo yum install epel-release sudo yum install dnf __Note__: On CentOS 6, you will get a "No package dnf available" notice after you have run the commands above, because the DNF program has not been added into the EPEL 6.x Yum repo. You would need to build DNF from source. ## DNF's basic usages and examples Synopsis of the `dnf` command: [sudo] dnf [options] [...] Now, I will show you some examples of how to use DNF: ### Upgrade all packages sudo dnf upgrade or sudo dnf update Unlike in Yum, DNF's "update" sub command is deprecated, now it becomes the alias of "upgrade". ### Search for the package you need dnf list You can use wildcards to match more packages: dnf list php* ### Search for an installed package dnf list --installed ### Display repo list dnf repolist ### Install a single package sudo dnf install ### Install multiple packages sudo dnf install

### Reinstall a package sudo dnf reinstall ### Upgrade a single package sudo dnf upgrade ### Uninstall a package sudo dnf remove ### Uninstall all dependency packages which are no longer required sudo dnf autoremove ### Clean all temporary files sudo dnf clean all ### Consult dnf man page You can consult the `dnf` man page to learn more about dnf sub commands and usages: dnf --help or dnf -h or man dnf

Articles Tagged: Software Packages