Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!

[Kent West <westk@nicanor.acu.edu>]

Kirk Hogenson wrote:

>

<snip>

>
> Anyway, let me describe what Eric was talking about.  The file
> /var/lib/dpkg/Contents-i386.gz contains information about which
> package contains what.  If you want to find the HOWTO's, for
> example, try something like:
>
>   zgrep HOWTO /var/lib/dpkg/Contents-i386.gz | less
>
> This searches through the Contents file and prints all of the lines
> that contain the word HOWTO.
>
> As another example: suppose you are compiling something and you get
> the error:  "sgml2html: command not found".  This happened to me
> last night.  I tried:
>
>   zgrep sgml2html /var/lib/dpkg/Contents-i386.gz | less
>
> and it printed:
>
> usr/bin/sgml2html                         text/sgml-tools
> usr/man/man1/sgml2html.1.gz               text/sgml-tools
>
> So, I knew that I need to install the package "sgml-tools", which
> is in the "text" section.
>
> I hope this helps, and good luck getting your sound card working.
> And please ask here if you run into problems.  You are immune to
> "What a dumb question" attacks if you've read the Howto. :)
>
> Kirk

I'm not part of this thread, but I just wanted to say that Kirk's explanation is
EXCELLENT!  It's got non-technospeak explanations; it's got a couple of simple
real-world examples; it's just a great document. This is what a lot of newbies want
(and even some of us semi-newbies).