Package search by file name

vit.gottwald · 2008-03-19 18:41:53

Hi there,

I am wondering if there is a way to locate a particular package if I only know a name of some file it contains. The www.archlinux.org/packages seems to search only the short describtion and package name.

This is quite stupid since it happens quite often that you work with some tutorial which wants you to run some utility and you do not have it. Or you want to run a program you just dowloaded sources from and compiled them and you need a library, but you have no idea what package it might be in.

I know it is possible to look through installed packages by file name using 'pacman Qo /path/to/file'. However I would like to do the same for packages not yet installed. Moreover without having to specify the full path.

For example I am looking for 'mkfs.vfat' utility to format my usb stick.

....

I already found it to be part of dosfstools, but it was more a luck than any systematic search ...

Thanks for answers.

Vit

dyscoria · 2008-03-19 18:44:54

Try:

pacman -Ql | grep path/to/file

Actually, i don't think i understood your question fully. Lemme think...

Last edited by dyscoria (2008-03-19 18:46:44)

dyscoria · 2008-03-19 18:54:51

vit.gottwald wrote:

I am wondering if there is a way to locate a particular package if I only know a name of some file it contains.

Well "pacman -Ql" would list the files owned by a package.

vit.gottwald wrote:

I know it is possible to look through installed packages by file name using 'pacman Qo /path/to/file'. However I would like to do the same for packages not yet installed.

pacman -Qo will determine what package owns a file. You can't do this for packages you haven't installed yet as a file won't be owned by a package you don't have installed. Or am I misunderstanding you?

vit.gottwald wrote:

For example I am looking for 'mkfs.vfat' utility to format my usb stick.

Is 'mkfs.vfat' a file you are looking for or a package?

vit.gottwald · 2008-03-19 19:14:23

I am looking for a package which contains a particular file (in this case 'mkfs.vfat'). Then I want to install the package and run the program ('mkfs.vfat').

Army · 2008-03-19 19:14:35

If you want to know it before installing the programm, you could check out the site of the german arch community, where you can list all files contained by a package. You can even search for it => click

For the non-german guys:
Name = name
Beschreibung = describtion
Datei = file <= this is, what's asked for here
Suchen = search

Last edited by Army (2008-03-19 19:16:20)

danielsoft · 2008-03-19 19:24:24

dyscoria: I understand his point this way:

let's suppose,for example, I want the utility "glxinfo"

pacman -Ss glxinfo

gives me nothing

pacman -Ql | grep glxinfo

gives me nothing, because if I want it, logically I don't have it on my disk

the file is in package "mesa", let's suppose I don't know this, so I would want something like this

pacman -S --filename glxinfo
       extra/mesa 7.0.3rc2-1
    Mesa OpenGL library

in this case the information -that glxinfo is in mesa package- is written in the Wiki, but I chose is as an example: there are more packages which contains more than one binary utility, so it can't be named after all of them, you can use common sense to try to estimate where it is, but a feature like this can save you time

danielsoft · 2008-03-19 19:26:02

Army: thanks. you replied while I was constructing my reply

Army · 2008-03-19 19:30:53

Well, yours ist pretty good! Thanks for that!

tigrmesh · 2008-03-19 19:48:40

Army wrote:

If you want to know it before installing the programm, you could check out the site of the german arch community, where you can list all files contained by a package. You can even search for it

Thanks. What a great site and tutorial.

vit.gottwald · 2008-03-19 20:47:05

Thank you guys, thats exactly what I meant and what I was looking for :-)

Do you think there is a chance that it will be any time soon available in the www.archlinux.org/packages web site or even better as a pacman option ?

shining · 2008-03-19 21:51:35

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/4824

German users are lucky

miggy · 2008-03-19 22:08:37

I think this was the very first post I made on these forums. Here's what I've been doing thanks to the suggestion from byte:

Doesn't work for every package, but sometimes this Google query helps:
site:archlinux.org inurl:packages/files cdrecord (for example)

so i just have a link to a google search page with no file listed then i type in what i want and hit search

Misfit138 · 2008-03-20 00:56:54

shining wrote:

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/4824
German users are lucky

Voted.

I think it's a great feature. Seems as though it will require a fair bit of hacking, though.

nDray · 2008-03-20 11:21:16

Misfit138 wrote:

shining wrote:
http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/4824
German users are lucky
Voted.
I think it's a great feature. Seems as though it will require a fair bit of hacking, though.

Let me disagree... It is as simple as reading the .FILELIST... Searching for that will take a long time, though.... Maybe local [sync] database could include that file.....

Last edited by nDray (2008-03-20 11:22:34)

finferflu · 2008-03-20 11:26:22

Could this help? http://pacnet.karbownicki.com/en

tomk · 2008-03-20 11:39:07

I read the whole thread, and it's all good, but I couldn't shake off the fact that the OP thinks it's "quite stupid" that this facility is not available. I strongly disagree, for the simple reason that it is very easy to find out which upstream application provides a particular file using generic search methods. Once you have that, it is also very easy to find the relevant Arch package using Arch search methods.

vit.gottwald - if you think any aspect of what we're doing here is stupid, you can a) fix it and submit a patch, b) use your existing knowledge and/or skill to work around it (see above), or c) find an alternative distro with a lower stupidity level.

vit.gottwald · 2008-03-20 20:42:32

tomk wrote:

I read the whole thread, and it's all good, but I couldn't shake off the fact that the OP thinks it's "quite stupid" that this facility is not available. I strongly disagree, for the simple reason that it is very easy to find out which upstream application provides a particular file using generic search methods. Once you have that, it is also very easy to find the relevant Arch package using Arch search methods.
vit.gottwald - if you think any aspect of what we're doing here is stupid, you can a) fix it and submit a patch, b) use your existing knowledge and/or skill to work around it (see above), or c) find an alternative distro with a lower stupidity level.

Sorry for that. I didn't want to upset anyone. Actually arch seems to me to be the 'right' dristribution for me after trying redhat, suse, mandriva and *buntu at last. Please be a bit tolerant, I am not a native English speaker and somtimes my expressions are a bit clumsy. When I said stupid I was definitely not referring to pacman but to the process of looking for the right package I couldn't figure out. My apology and thanks to everyone's answer.

Last edited by vit.gottwald (2008-03-20 20:43:15)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-19 18:41:53

Package search by file name

#2 2008-03-19 18:44:54

Re: Package search by file name

#3 2008-03-19 18:54:51

Re: Package search by file name

#4 2008-03-19 19:14:23

Re: Package search by file name

#5 2008-03-19 19:14:35

Re: Package search by file name

#6 2008-03-19 19:24:24

Re: Package search by file name

#7 2008-03-19 19:26:02

Re: Package search by file name

#8 2008-03-19 19:30:53

Re: Package search by file name

#9 2008-03-19 19:48:40

Re: Package search by file name

#10 2008-03-19 20:47:05

Re: Package search by file name

#11 2008-03-19 21:51:35

Re: Package search by file name

#12 2008-03-19 22:08:37

Re: Package search by file name

#13 2008-03-20 00:56:54

Re: Package search by file name

#14 2008-03-20 11:21:16

Re: Package search by file name

#15 2008-03-20 11:26:22

Re: Package search by file name

#16 2008-03-20 11:39:07

Re: Package search by file name

#17 2008-03-20 20:42:32

Re: Package search by file name

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