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Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere"

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On Wed, Apr 19, 2017 at 08:59:18AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> I've had two instances recently. I've found the "immediately" needed
> information, but they are samples of more generic problems.
> 
> 1. Today's problem was easily solved. I had seen a post discussing
> an application of the "tree" command. When I tried it, I got
> "command not found". In _this_ case it was easily solved by using
> Synaptic's search function -- there is a package named "tree".
> 
> However that is not always the case. Some months ago I got a
> "command not found" message for a command that had a man page (do
> not recall the specific command). It turned out it was one utility
> command among many provided by a package with an unrelated name.
> 
> Is there a general way to find such a package?

apt-file, in the same-named package: it keeps an index of file names
(not only binaries) to package names containing them.

Don't forget to do "sudo apt-file update" from time to time, to keep
your cache current.

> 2. There are many commands whose man pages point to using the "info"
> command. I personally find that format more annoying than useful. I
> would prefer to access the TeXInfo formatted document and convert it
> locally to desired format - usually HTML.

If PDF counts as "desirable format", texi2pdf might be your solution.
Otherwise there's pandoc.

Note that you lose something: the texinfo files are usually cross-linked.

> If the command is on my machine (i.e. GRUB), I can generally find
> the associated TeXInfo formatted file (usually concealed in a tarred
> or zipped file). How to search for all TeXInfo files on debian.org?

Try apt-file search .texi 

For "apt-file", see above :-)

regards
- -- tomás
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Thread

Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2017-04-19 16:10 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk> - 2017-04-19 16:30 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-04-19 16:40 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-04-19 16:40 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org> - 2017-04-19 16:50 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" Frank Miles <fpm@u.washington.edu> - 2017-04-19 17:20 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-04-19 18:10 +0200
  Re: Efficiently finding information 'known' to exist "somewhere" davidson@freevolt.org - 2017-04-19 20:40 +0200

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