https://media.ccc.de/v/2480-dnf-vs-zypp-fight

A comparison of the two major RPM package managers

In one corner, we have Zypper: the successor to the motley of package management options from Ximian and SuSE. Created after the merger of the Ximian and YaST package manager teams, it was a pioneer in using the SAT solver for package management and proved that it worked well at scale in a large and popular Linux distribution platform (SUSE Linux). It spawned the development of libsatsolver, which became libsolv. Considered by many to be the most advanced and fastest package manager, it is created a class of package managers all on its own. It is used in openSUSE, but is also available in Fedora and other RPM-based Linux distributions.

In the other corner, we have DNF: the anointed successor to YUM (Yellowdog Updater, Modified). DNF (Dandified YUM) was forked from YUM to rework the internals to leverage libsolv and offer a saner, more maintainable API. Forged from the blood, sweat, and tears of many package manager…