Description of problem: rpm can only show direct matches. While most unix tools have also a command line option to ignore cases (most often "-i"; see locate, grep, etc.) rpm is missing such an option. How reproducible: $ rpm -q policykit The package policykit is not installed $ rpm -q PolicyKit PolicyKit-0.6-1.fc8 Expected results: There should be an option to make the search case sensitive. "-i" is already reserved though for installation.
Heh, -i has 3 different, contextually dependent usages in rpm already and you want case insensitivity?!? Buy an IBM terminal, or superglue your shift-lock, if you want case insensitivity.
"rpm -qa|grep -i policykit" if you want case-insensitive query, rpm has way too many cli-switches already. I'd prefer forcing lower case for package names as distro policy to avoid the issue entirely with tHEsE CraZY pACKagE NamES but that's just me...
rpm -qa takes a lot of time on old machines with lots of packages installed. That is far from user friendly. Also, the inconsistency compared with other linux tools stays in the world by not fixing the issue.
"ls" can take a lot of time on on old machines in large directories, yet it doesn't come with ignore-case option either.