Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
I kind of hate to jump into a string like this but at the risk of
sounding real stupid how can one create this
/var/lib/dpkg/Contents-i386.gz file. I've searched for it on my Slink
system and it just isn't there. I took a look at the dpkg man page and
see no reference to the file. I see that you can look for packages in
/var/lib/dpkg/available but that's not the same.
Thanks,
kent
Kirk Hogenson wrote:
>
> Eric Gillespie, Jr. wrote:
> > For example, someone asked if there was a package
> > containing the Howtos. Instead of telling him the name of the package,
> > he should have been told how to grep the Contents file, that way he
> > can find things on his own instead of asking the list every time.
> > Remember, catch a man a fish and you feed him that day, teach the man
> > to fish, and he'll never starve again.
>
> Kristopher Johnson wrote:
> > I'm the guy that asked which package had the HOWTOs. I know it seemed
> > like a dumb question, but I did try searching on "HOWTO" in both
> > dselect and on the Debian web site, and came up with nothing. And I
> > started paging through the 2700+ packages shown in dselect, but gave
> > up after an hour or so of that.
>
> I don't want to speak for Eric, but I really doubt he was saying
> that you were asking a dumb question. I think he was instead
> criticising those who answered by just telling you which package you
> needed, rather than telling you how you find this information out
> for yourself.
>
> That way, the next time you have a question of the form "I need to
> find out which package has <something>", you won't need to ask again.
> Even more than that, you perhaps might see someone else ask a
> question like that, and pass the information on.
>
> Please don't feel bad for asking "dumb" questions! (Though I really
> think you were asking a good question, but even if it were a dumb
> question you should not feel bad for asking it.) That is what
> debian-user is for.
>
> 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
>
> --
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