Re: So many package tools, apt, dselect, dpkg, which should I choose?

[will trillich <will@serensoft.com>]

Yuwen Dai wrote:
> I'm new to Debian but not new to Linux.  I find there're many packages in
> Debian.  I'm confused.  In what situation should I choose one?

when you need the functionality it provides. :) many debian
packages are uber-instances of redhat packages, if that helps.

the hard part, i've found, is determining WHICH packages provide
what you're after.

on my potato, i use

	apt-cache search <some-term-here>
	dpkg -S <some-fractional-filepath-here>
	http://packages.debian.org/<package-search-term-here>
	mail -s 'which package does <x-y-z>?' \
		debian-user@lists.debian.org < last-resort.whine

once you do find it,

	apt-get update
	apt-get install <package-name-here>

and you're off to the races.

and as always, see

http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/system/apt-get-intro.html

of course. :)

-- 
DEBIAN NEWBIE TIP #49 from Will Trillich <will@serensoft.com>
:
Looking to ENCODE OR DECODE SOME ROT-13 TEXT? No problem.
"Vg'f rnfl jvgu Ivz." It's a simple alphabet substitution where
each letter changes to its counterpart 13 places away in the
alphabet (a<->n, g<->t, etc) . Open the text in Vim, then
select it (type "v" at one end of the text to encode/decode,
then move to the other end) and then type "g?".
  Or, to rot-13 a whole line, just "g??".  That's all!
(Try ":help g?" for more info.)

Also see http://newbieDoc.sourceForge.net/ ...