How do you know what app is available from where, and by what name?

[Derek Broughton]

Wade Smart wrote:

> 12132005 0837 GMT-5
> 
> Im still not clear on some things with Linux.
> Lets start with this: I like to use Opera sometimes instead of Firefox
> so, I want to download it. But since its not in Synaptic, I do sudo
> apt-get install opera. I receive a message saying its not available by
> that name.
> 
> How do you know know what the application you want is named as? Is it
> named as opera and the version number? Or some other scheme?

Opera's not free software, and not available in Ubuntu (since I don't use
it, I don't know whether there are .debs available, somewhere else).

> How do you learn about that?

If looking for something I don't actually know the name of I'll usually use
kpackage.  Synaptic or Adept would do as well.

You should be able to use aptitude but I can never get an adequate result
from using the ~N form for wildcarding, so I'm not going to even try to
explain it :-)
-- 
derek