Re: What shows what an uninstalled package does?

[Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com>]

Martin Hermanowski <martin@mh57.net> writes:

>> `apt-cache showpkg <package>' gives some information but doesn't tell you
>> what the package does.  If its not installed then dpkg -I doesn't know
>> about it.
>> 
>> Combing thru `man apt-cache' I found the -f (full) operator too but
>> `apt-cache -f showpkg <package> still doesn't really tell what a package
>> does. 

> have you tried apt-cache show?

Yikes.. I guess the name is kind of a giveaway but the definition in
the man page doesn't come across as giving that kind of information:

       show   show performs a function similar to  dpkg  --print-
              avail,  it  displays  the  package  records for the
              named packages.

When I saw the part about `records' I just assumed it was stuff like
size version etc.  One expects a term like `summary' or the like for
that kind of information.  Unless you already know what 
     dpkg --print-avail
does. Not a good assumption in a man page.

Thanks, I should have tried it I guess but that discription just made
me keep looking.