RPM

[Michael Schwendt]

On 30/10/2007, Karl Larsen <k5di at zianet.com> wrote:
>
>     Yes I saw that rpm -qf was close to what I used. I have no idea what
> capability the longer whatprovides provides either.

It is simple. "rpm -qf" is short for "rpm --query --file" and can only
be used to query the package that contains the given _file_.

On the contrary, "rpm --query --whatprovides" searches all installed
packages in order to find which packages provides the given
_capability_. That "capability" can be anything from a file path, a
package name, to a descriptive symbol, which is used in inter-package
dependencies (e.g. but not limited to low-level library sonames, API
features and versions, virtual package names). You can examine package
capabilities with the "rpm --query --provides PKGNAMEHERE" query.