The Power of "rpm -qa"
Dave Aiello wrote, "You'd think that someone like me who fancies himself a skilled Linux user would have a clue when it comes to the use of rpm, the Red Hat Package Manager. But, here's an example of how much I haven't learned yet."
"I just discovered a powerful way to identify groups of packages that are already installed. If I want to find most of the Perl-related packages, I can enter the following command in a shell:"
rpm -qa | grep perl
"The fact that I knew to do this with the ps command (i.e. ps -ef | grep perl) in order to find defunct processes, but I didn't attempt to leverage the same technique to finding installed rpms ought to scare me to death. After all, this is a UNIX-like operating system, and the techniques you learn in one subsystem are ususally valuable in another."
"I'm sure that truly experienced Linux people who read this will conclude that I am a poseur. But, I promised myself a while ago that I would disclose as many of my truly embarassing technical gaffes and gaps in knowledge as possible-- just so I could point to them later and prove to my critics how much I've grown."