Knowing whats installled

[pengu34]

Whats the best way to know if a certain packages is installed on your system?

I ask as I want to install firefox and there are some pre requisits. These are:

* glibc 2.3.2 or higher
* XFree86-3.3.6 or higher
* gtk+2.0 or higher
* fontconfig (also known as xft)
* libstdc++5

So how do I know if these are on my system???

Thanks

[AlexK]

the easiest way to install a package and all its dependancies is to use the urpmi command. As root, type into a terminal

urpmi firefox

and the system will look p the nearest ftp server for firefox, download it and any other dependancy. It will then proceed to install all those dependancies along with firefox. If the dependancies are already on your system, it will not download them.

Note: I am not sure that the package will be named firefox. if it is not, the urpmi command will list suitable packages which contain the firefox name. Select one of these packages to install.

[pengu34]

Cool.

I knew of the urpmi command (never tried) but didnt realise it would pick up on generic names etc and from that download all dependencies...

I shall try tonight and see what happens

BTW - Is there a way to see if a certain package is installed? I see that there is a urpmq command but does this need to know precise package names (or is this clever again and list everything with the generic name)? Not at my linux machine so cant test.

Thanks

[AlexK]

I don't know if there is a specific command to see if a package is installed. However, when i installed python using the urpmi command, it said that it was already installed. so, you could try urpmi glibc2.3.2 and see if it is installed.

If the prequesites are not on your system, the urpmi command will install it for you. If it is there, it will use what is there.

Hope this helps.

[bigtomrodney]

Sure you can go into rpmdrake - the package removal version from the configuration menu or MCC. Just search for thise names (best without the versions). Cos you can't uninstall a program without installing it... :P

[pengu34]

Thanks again. Nice handy tips