pirut

Launch pirut

$ pirut

As a graphical user interface application, Pirut was primarily launched by simply invoking its name. It offered very limited or no functional command-line options for direct package manipulation.

pirut [generic_options]

generic_options: Common options like --help or --version.

No specific package management parameters.
    Pirut was primarily a graphical application and did not offer command-line parameters for performing package management tasks directly. Its command-line invocation was typically limited to launching the GUI.

--help
    Displays a brief help message regarding generic command usage.

--version
    Shows the version information of the Pirut application.

Pirut was a graphical front-end application designed for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora distributions. Its primary purpose was to simplify package management by providing an intuitive user interface over the command-line yum (Yellowdog Updater, Modified) utility. Users could easily search for, install, update, and remove software packages without needing to memorize yum commands or package names. It offered a visual representation of available software, categories, and installed packages, making it accessible for users less familiar with the Linux terminal. Pirut aimed to enhance the user experience for system administration tasks related to software installation and maintenance.

While widely used in earlier versions of RHEL and Fedora, it has since been superseded by more modern and robust package management front-ends like yumex and, more recently, dnfdragora and GNOME Software Center, which provide similar or enhanced functionalities on systems that now primarily use dnf.

Pirut is an outdated and deprecated graphical package manager. It is no longer actively developed or maintained and has been replaced by more modern tools like yumex, dnfdragora, and system-integrated software centers (e.g., GNOME Software) in contemporary Red Hat-based distributions (Fedora, RHEL, CentOS Stream). Attempting to use pirut on recent systems will likely fail as the executable may not exist, or its dependencies might be missing. Users should utilize dnf or yum (on older systems) from the command line, or their respective graphical front-ends, for package management.

Pirut provided a user-friendly graphical interface for managing RPM packages, including searching, installing, updating, and removing software. It was designed to make package management accessible to users who preferred a visual approach over the command line.

While Pirut offered basic functionalities, it lacked advanced features and modern UI/UX elements. It was gradually phased out and replaced by more robust and actively maintained graphical tools such as yumex (for yum) and later dnfdragora and other distribution-specific software centers that leverage dnf.

Pirut emerged as an early attempt by Red Hat and the Fedora project to provide a more user-friendly interface for package management, abstracting the complexities of the yum command-line utility. It was prominently featured in Fedora Core releases and early versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Its development coincided with a period when graphical desktop environments were becoming more sophisticated, and there was a growing need for intuitive system administration tools.

As Linux distributions evolved, so did their package management needs. Pirut eventually became stagnant in development and was superseded by new generations of graphical tools that offered better integration with modern desktop environments and kept pace with changes in the underlying yum and later dnf technologies. Its legacy lies in paving the way for more refined graphical package managers.

yum(8), dnf(8), rpm(8), yumex(1), dnfdragora(1)