Harry Putnam <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > If I want to find out about a package. I mean, like what it > actually does, what is the right command, when the package is not > installed but apt-cache knows about it?
I'd recommend not trying to do everything from the command line. These days, I like 'aptitude' as a front-end to APT; it's easy to see a package's description, dependencies/recommendations/suggestions and reverse *, and to resolve dependency issues that come out of packages. Simple prodding inside of aptitude can usually give a quick answer to the all-too-often-asked question, "why does 'apt-get dist-upgrade' want to remove [package I care about]?". > In case any former redhat users see this, I'm looking for something > that works like `rpm -qip <package>' (which also works on ftp sites > that allow it) It gives a general blurb that tells what the package > does. 'dpkg -s <package>' (for installed packages) or 'apt-cache show <package>' will give you the package description. -- David Maze [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://people.debian.org/~dmaze/ "Theoretical politics is interesting. Politicking should be illegal." -- Abra Mitchell
