Description of Problem: Would very much appreciate an "apropos" query option to the command line for rpm. If I don't know the exact package name, finding it without sorting through all packages can be a pain. Adding a command line option to help find the right package would be very useful. I propose the -A/--apropos query option, to take a search term that will be searched against all known packages. Without --apropos: "Hm, where is samba?" % rpm -q samba package samba not installed % rpm -q --whatprovides samba no package provides samba % rpm -q --file samba error: file samba: file not found % rpm -q -a | grep samba samba-client-2.0.10-2 samba-common-2.0.10-2 "Hm, which package provides smbmount?" % rpm -q --whatprovides smbmount no package provides smbmount % rpm -q --file smbmount error: file smbmount: file not found % which smbmount /usr/bin/smbmount % rpm -q --file /usr/bin/smbmount samba-client-2.0.10-2 With --apropos: % rpm -qA samba samba-client-2.0.10-2 samba-common-2.0.10-2 % rpm -qA smbmount samba-client-2.0.10-2 Additional Information: The simplest form would be to just make it work like "rpm -q -a | grep %1", but that would only help if the word you're looking for was a part of the package name. I suggest that --apropos match against the package names, the provides (and virtual provides), and the filename lists, and returns the matched package names, as shown in the examples above. [Got suggestion from irc.linux.org #redhat that Jeff Johnson may be a suitable party for this idea.]
The idea is sound, but parameterizing the locations where information might be gleaned is lots trickier than searching, say, MANPATH. Deferred for further thought.