How to Find Which Files Does a Package Contains - *SOLVED*

[MagicMichael]

Sometimes it's necessary to get a specific file installed (e.g. right now, I'm looking for rdebug. If doing a compile, it's important to have the right headers installed). In PCLinuxOS, how can I find what packages I need to install to get a specific file? All help greatly appreciated as I'm learning the distro.

Thanks much
---Michael

[JohnW_57]

You need to install the smart package-manager.

Open one of the groups, click on a package and with Content you can read the content the rpm package.

JohnW

[musonio]

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but if you click on Search in synpatic and select Provided Packages, that should give you the information you need.
However, I did it with rdebug and nothing comes up.

[JohnW_57]

With synaptic you can view the package dependencies, but not the content of a rpm package.

With the smart package manager you can read the contents of a rpm package also the change logs (who did packaged the rpm).

JohnW

[musonio]

If by contents you mean the packages/files, etc. that a certain package provides, you can.

[MagicMichael]

You need to install the smart package-manager.

Open one of the groups, click on a package and with Content you can read the content the rpm package.

JohnW

That's a useful tool, but searching for a specific file to install would require manually examining the content of every package on the system. Not really practical.

[MagicMichael]

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but if you click on Search in synpatic and select Provided Packages, that should give you the information you need.
However, I did it with rdebug and nothing comes up.

That will only find package names - or a phrase in the description. It won't find files. Example: Suppose - for a compilation - I need file libruby.so (I believe it's in ruby-devel, but assume I don't know that). I can't do a search in Synaptic to find that specific file. If I need a file, I need to know the name of the package that contains it.

[Neal ManBear]

Perhaps I'm missing the point, but if you click on Search in synpatic and select Provided Packages, that should give you the information you need.
However, I did it with rdebug and nothing comes up.

That will only find package names - or a phrase in the description. It won't find files. Example: Suppose - for a compilation - I need file libruby.so (I believe it's in ruby-devel, but assume I don't know that). I can't do a search in Synaptic to find that specific file. If I need a file, I need to know the name of the package that contains it.

Yes, you can. If you know the name of the file you need, search synaptic via provided packages. Example: libfoo.so.3 - search returns foo-devel, so you know that you need foo-devel to get libfoo.so.3. Simple. Easy.
 

[MagicMichael]

Yes, you can. If you know the name of the file you need, search synaptic via provided packages. Example: libfoo.so.3 - search returns foo-devel, so you know that you need foo-devel to get libfoo.so.3. Simple. Easy.
 

I did not know that.

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you very much.

---Michael

[Neal ManBear]

Answered? Please edit your first post in this thread to add [Solved] to the title.