Re: A rosetta stone of package names?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hello Tim,

* Tim Post wrote on Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 11:38:50AM CEST:
> 
> I am trying to create a ./configure that prompts the use to auto install
> packages that may be missing in order to complete the build.
> 
> For instance:
> 
> checking for main in libfoo [no]
> libfoo is missing, would you like to install it? [Y/n]

How would that work?  On this system I'm sitting at, you'd have to be
super user to install, and while I may be in charge, I'm certainly not
going to hand out the password to your configure script; neither will I
compile sources as super user.  On another system, the only way to
globally install software is to write a friendly mail to the people in
charge.  On the next again, it is not even possible to locally (i.e.,
below $HOME) install additional software compiled from source.

> Does anyone know of any table anywhere that correlates colloquial
> package names to the specific names that various package installers want
> to hear?

No, but I do know that going the other way round, i.e., from distro
packaging tools like rpm or apt, to building sources already works very
nicely.  For example "apt-get source ..." or "apt-get build-dep ...".

Cheers,
Ralf