Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
Hi...I am having alot of fun learning how to use linux and reading documentations. One question..when I read some documentation and they tell me "make sure you have this and this installed". How do I check if I have it installed?
I have used the pkgtool and I know I can find alot of packages I have installed there. what if I install something via rpm? will it still show in the pkgtool? What if I installed via tar.gz?
Linux is so cool that there probably is a command to check. Can someone help me with it?
If you want to remove a part of the original install, then pkgtool is the way to go. It has an option for removing packages that will list all the packages it knows about. Just select the Mozilla 1.3 package and get rid of it.
If you are compiling from source, you'll also want to check out the CheckInstall program. It replaces the make install step in compiling and updates Slackware so that your compilied program looks like a Slack pack. Checkinstall does actually install the program, but if you want to remove it later you can use tools like pkgtool.
the fun really begins when you are on an RPM based distribution ... say SuSE, and update from a tar.gz source code file, and make something yourself ... say gtk, and are happily running the new version of gtk, until you use YaST2 and it decides "hold on a minute, you need the version that shipped with SuSE" and then it installs the old version, and then you are wondering why nothing doesn't seem to work anymore.
In short, all of those tools that track what you do or don't have are worth didly squat. ./configure it and if you have what the software needs great, if it doesn't it will let you know, and then you can always worry about where to get it from.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.