welcome to the glories of apt apt-cache search <keyword>
will give you a list of packages apt-cache show <packagename> will give you the database entry for that package for instance: $ apt-cache show less Package: less Priority: standard Section: text Installed-Size: 154 Maintainer: Thomas Schoepf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Architecture: i386 Version: 346-7 Depends: libc6 (>= 2.1.2), libncurses5, debianutils (>= 1.8) Filename: dists/potato/main/binary-i386/text/less_346-7.deb Size: 81970 MD5sum: 4eb92e99f6baa003f2d4f7a7e5f4271e Description: A file pager program, similar to more(1) Less is a program similar to more (1), but which allows backward movement in the file as well as forward movement. Also, less does not have to read the entire input file before starting, so with large input files it starts up faster than text editors like vi (1). Less uses termcap (or terminfo on some systems), so it can run on a variety of terminals. There is even limited support for hardcopy terminals. . Homepage: http://www.flash.net/~marknu/less/ On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Bob Miller wrote: > How can I find out what a Debian package is? In an RPM based system, > you can use "rpm -qi $package" to learn about it. Here's an example. > > $ rpm -qi wget > ... > Description : > GNU Wget is a file retrieval utility which can use either the HTTP or > FTP protocols. Wget features include the ability to work in the > background while you're logged out, recursive retrieval of directories, > file name wildcard matching, remote file timestamp storage and comparison, > use of Rest with FTP servers and Range with HTTP servers to retrieve files > over slow or unstable connections, support for Proxy servers, and > configurability. > > Install wget if you need to retrieve large numbers of files with HTTP or > FTP, or if you need a utility for mirroring web sites or FTP directories. > > How would I get the same information in Debian? It has several > thousand packages, and there are at least three that I don't know > anything about. (-: > > -- > Bob Miller K<bob> > kbobsoft software consulting > http://kbobsoft.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www.efn.org/~laprice ( Community, Cooperation, Consensus http://www.opn.org ( Openness to serendipity, make mistakes http://www.efn.org/~laprice/poems ( but learn from them.(carpe fructus ludi) http://allie.office.efn.org/phpwiki/index.php?OregonPublicNetworking
