For many years, Linux distributions have had a reputation for handling package distribution well. A desktop system will likely have a graphical package management application that provides easily searchable indexes containing thousands of packages. More recently, various applications have been created to help with software discovery (to make finding new packages easier).

Applications such as Discover (more information on this can be found at userbase.kde.org/Discover) can be used on most systems by working with many different package managers. Others, such as Ubuntu Software Center, aim to make it easier to find applications for specific systems based on categories, ratings, and other enhanced metadata.

Despite there being hundreds of different Linux distributions only a handful of packaging formats are needed to support them. In this section we look at the three most popular formats: Debian, Red Hat, and Tarball. Once packages have been created for a system the application developer can submit it to a package list. As Linux is an open source system, however, you may find that an existing package maintainer may be happy to do that for you!