Understanding Linux package management

Nowadays, app stores are all the rage on most platforms; you'll have one central location from which to retrieve applications, allowing you to install them on your device. Computers, as well as phones and tablets, utilize a central software repository in which software is curated and made available. The Android platform has the Google Play store, Apple offers its App Store, and so on. For us Linux folk, this concept isn't new. The concept of software repositories (that young people refer to nowadays as app stores), have been around within the Linux community since long before cellular phones even had color screens.

Linux has had package management since the 90s, popularized by Debian and then Red Hat. Software repositories are generally made available in the form of mirrors, to which your server subscribes. Mirrors are available across a multitude of geographic areas, so, typically, your installation of Ubuntu Server would subscribe to the mirror closest...