What are the differences between these adb and fastboot packages? In my Bash shell, I have the packages: adb vs android-tools-adb as well as fastboot vs android-tools-fastboot. 

For reference I am trying to root my device, and later use these tools to learn about how Android works etc.

What are the differences between the packages? Is each one a subset of the other?
The shorter named packages, adb and fastboot are part of android-platform-system-core, and are minimal versions. Likewise, their longer named counterparts belong to android-tools, and are the full versions. apt show &lt;package name&gt; doesn't say much about their differences, except that the adb will break android-tools-adb. The same goes for fastboot.

This is the homepage for the longer named versions, but it makes no mention of fastboot.

The shorter versions' homepage is here.