On 2010-11-02, Kfir Lavi <lavi.k...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a way to search for a file that I can install, but is not
> currently installed in the system?
With a meta-distribution, that's not quite possible to do in a
definitive way. With a binarydistribution like Fedora or Ubuntu, you
know what files are going to be installed by any given package, since
the files are already there inside the package file.
With a distro like Gentoo, the files aren't there -- only the
instructions for building them are present, and you don't really know
exactly what files are going to get installed until after you've built
the package from the source code.
If you can find a system that already has the package installed with
all of the USE flags enable, then you can look at that system and be
pretty confident that the same files would be installed on your system
should you install that program with the same USE flags.
So if you install all packages with all USE flags set, you can then
search that system to find out who owns a particular file.
Somebody's already posted a link to a site that attempts to do
something like that, but there's always the possibility that your USE
flags will cause a slightly different set of files to be installed
(IOW you may already have the package installed, but you don't have
the required USE flag).
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! The Osmonds! You are
at all Osmonds!! Throwing up
gmail.com on a freeway at dawn!!!
