Re: [tlug] Synaptic 17,316 Packages

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Alain" == Alain Hoang <hoanga@example.com> writes:

    Alain> I've found 'apt-get' and 'apt-cache search' to be more
    Alain> efficient once you get enough buzzwords into your personal
    Alain> jargon.

But by then you're basically set up and you want to add a new
capability, ie, you know what you're looking for.  Lyle wants to
browse, and I'd recommend aptitude (not a GUI front end!) for that.

dselect maybe is better now, but it used to be really bad, both as a
UI and as a package manager.  It was extremely fascist about enforcing
dependencies and tended to get itself wedged in cycles.  apt (and
aptitude) is much easier to reason with than the dselect I knew.

    Alain>     Lyle, if you REALLY want a text file to look through
    Alain> try poking around in /var/lib/dpkg (at least in Debian).
    Alain> The file you can look for is called 'available'.

Which is unsorted!  Not to mention that it doesn't seem complete. :-(

Maybe debram (or the equivalent for ubuntu?) would be useful:

Description: ramified catalog of available .debs
 Debian GNU/Linux provides thousands upon daunting thousands of software
 packages.  Sorting them into broad classes then dividing and redividing
 them into finer, more specific branches, the Debram ramifies Debian's
 packages in much the same manner as a university library ramifies its
 books.  If you know what you want your computer to do but do not yet
 know the package to do it, you can find the package here.

    Alain> If you accidentally bork one of these files by writing into
    Alain> it, I imagine the package manager will break in really
    Alain> weird ways.

You don't need to worry about available.  You can replace it with
available-old at any time (probably even delete it).  Just "apt-get
update" (or "u" in aptitude) and you're good as new.

But don't touch anything else.  While it's possible to recover from
most corruption in that directory, it's not pleasant.  (Just in case,
here's a hint: "cruft" can help with this, it looks for cruft that
isn't owned by a package, or gone AWOL.)


-- 
School of Systems and Information Engineering http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.