Debian flamewar

[Dan Jenkins]

Cole Tuininga wrote:

>  As an example, let's say I happen to know that in order to get a
>  remote machine to handle X forwarding with ssh, I need the xauth
>  command. But I'm not really sure in what package I would find xauth.
>
>
>  $ apt-cache search xauth xbase-clients - miscellaneous X clients xvfb
>  - virtual framebuffer X server
>
>  Sounds like xbase-clients is what I want. This is the thing that
>  kinda "wowed" me about apt when I first started playing with debian.
>  I'm imagining that yum probably has a similar ability though.

That was one of the things I liked most about Debian too.
I think it has inspired the other extended package managers (yum, urpm, 
...).

For example, Mandrake's equivalent is:
    # What package contains xauth:
    $ urpmq xauth
    mkxauth

    # Fuzzy search (these packages mention xauth):
    $ urpmq -y xauth
    The following packages contain xauth:
    XFree86
    mkxauth
    pam

    # Who depends on this package:
    $ urpmq -R xsane
    xsane
    xsane-gimp

    # What does this package depend on:
    $ urpmq -d xsane
    bash
    chkconfig
    common-licenses
    fontconfig
    glibc
    grep
    hotplug
    ifplugd
    ldconfig
    libatk1.0_0
    libexif9
    libexpat0
    libfontconfig1
    libfreetype6
    libgdk_pixbuf2.0_0
    libglib2.0_0
    libgphoto-hotplug
    libgphoto2
    libgtk+-x11-2.0_0
    libieee1284_3
    libjpeg62
    libpango1.0_0
    libpcre0
    libpng3
    libsane1
    libtermcap2
    libtiff3
    libusb0.1_4
    libxfree86
    libxpm4
    pango
    sash
    usbutils
    xsane
    zlib1

Of course, this one can be less useful for some packages, since 
dependencies can fan out rapidly.
xauth, for example, depends on 80 different packages.

-- 
Dan Jenkins (dan at rastech.com)
Rastech Inc., Bedford, NH, USA --- 1-603-206-9951
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