MEGA summary: How to search for programs easier when there is no access to GUI internet browser, I have no phone on me etc. Just having CLI in linux.
Let's say I'm using CentOS 7 and I'm looking for a program to install. I want to install "locate" command. To do it I write yum search locate
. The shell answers with a list of packages.
mlocate.x86_64 : An utility for finding files by name
perl-File-ShareDir.noarch : Locate per-dist and per-module shared files
which.x86_64 : Displays where a particular program in your path is located
In this case I intuitively know that the mlocate.x86_64 is probably what I'm looking for, so I install it by yum install mlocate.x86_64
but I have an enormous trouble doing that with programs that when searched for are being given to me as a giant list of packages. For example: I install minimal installation centos 7. After doing that i search for a dekstop environment xfce yum search xfce
. The output is massive and I don't know what even are these packages. I do know that xfce is a "desktop environment" so I yum search xfce | grep dekstop
. That gives me:
libxfce4util.i686 : Utility library for the Xfce4 desktop environment
libxfce4util.x86_64 : Utility library for the Xfce4 desktop environment
xfce4-power-manager.x86_64 : Power management for the Xfce desktop environment
exo.i686 : Application library for the Xfce desktop environment
exo.x86_64 : Application library for the Xfce desktop environment
xfdesktop.x86_64 : Desktop manager for the XFce Desktop Environment
The only thing that comes close to what I think I want is:
xfdesktop.x86_64 : Desktop manager for the XFce Desktop Environment
However I am not certain. Nowhere does it say "Xfce desktop environment". It just says that it's a Desktop manager for that environment. I don't know what that means. Maybe that particular example just shows that I'm stupid but I'm having this problem with many programs that I want to install.
I search for an ssh client:
[root@box-codeanywhere /]# yum search ssh | grep client
gsi-openssh-clients.x86_64 : SSH client applications with GSI authentication
libguac-client-ssh.i686 : SSH support for guacd
libguac-client-ssh.x86_64 : SSH support for guacd
ne7ssh.i686 : SSH Library is a Secure Shell client software written in C++
ne7ssh.x86_64 : SSH Library is a Secure Shell client software written in C++
openssh-clients.x86_64 : An open source SSH client applications
perl-Net-OpenSSH.noarch : Perl SSH client package implemented on top of OpenSSH
perl-Net-SSH-Perl.noarch : SSH (Secure Shell) client
dropbear.x86_64 : SSH2 server and client
perl-Net-SFTP-Foreign.noarch : SSH File Transfer Protocol client
putty.x86_64 : SSH, Telnet and Rlogin client
: clients and server
How do I know which package I need to install... I'm having this problem extremely often. It looks like I need to know the exact name string of a package responsible for installing certain program. My question is: How to search for program easier when there is no access to GUI internet browser, I have no phone on me etc. Just having CLI in linux.