what do i have here?
 

how can i see what things I have available to me? such as if i have php, mysql, etc and what versions? just kinda curious so I know what to do

what do you mean?

i want like a snapshot of the packages I have installed. I dont know if i have php or mysql installed, for example, and I'd like to see if I do.

rpm -qa |grep 'xxx'
where xxx is the packages that you want to know whether yuou have installed it or not.

rpm -qa |grep 'mysql'
mysql-server-3.23.56-1.9
mysql-3.23.54a-11
mod_auth_mysql-1.11-12
mysql-3.23.56-1.9
php-mysql-4.2.2-17.2

rpm -qa |grep 'php'
php-4.2.2-17.2
php-imap-4.2.2-17.2
php-ldap-4.2.2-17.2
php-odbc-4.2.2-17.2
php-4.2.2-17
php-mysql-4.2.2-17.2


pretty cool! I'm learning!

Good Luck