Notes for whohas
More information can be found at http://www.philippwesche.org/200811/whohas/intro.html
Philipp L. Wesche
whohas is a command line tool that allows querying several package lists at once - currently supported are Arch, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, Mageia, Mandriva, openSUSE, Slackware, Source Mage, Ubuntu, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Fink, MacPorts and Cygwin. whohas is written in Perl and was designed to help package maintainers find ebuilds, pkgbuilds and similar package definitions from other distributions to learn from. However, it can also be used by normal users who want to know:
- Which distribution has packages available for apps upon whom the user depends.
- What version of a given package is in use in each distribution, or in each release of a distribution (implemented only for Debian).
whohas gives urls to more details about the package. I recommend using a terminal that recognises hyperlinks and allows easy forwarding to the browser.
You can use grep to improve your search results:
whohas gimp | grep "gimp "
The space will ensure that only results for the package gimp are displayed, not for gimp-print etc.
whohas gimp | grep Arch
whohas gimp | grep -i arch
Either one of the above will display results for Arch Linux only. If you are interested in the search term or package arch, and want results for Arch Linux only,
whohas arch | grep "^Arch"
Example output:
[phil@epistasis whohas_release]$ whohas gaim
Arch gaim 1.4.0-1 10-07-2005 Current http://www.archlinux.org/packages.php?id=4226
Arch gaim-encryption 2.38-1 14-06-2005 Extra http://www.archlinux.org/packages.php?id=5518
Arch festival-gaim 1.1-1 community http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=1017
Arch gaim-latex 0.3-1 unsupported http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=1058
Arch gaim-otr 2.0.2-1 unsupported http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=1242
Arch gaim-xmms 0.33-1 unsupported http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=121
Arch guifications 2.9-1 unsupported http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?do_Details=1&ID=640
Debian gaim 1 oldstable http://packages.debian.org/oldstable/net/gaim
Debian gaim 1 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim
Debian gaim 1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim
Debian gaim 1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim
Debian gaim-autoprofile 2.10-1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-autoprofile
Debian gaim-autoprofile 2.10-2 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-autoprofile
Debian gaim-common 1 oldstable http://packages.debian.org/oldstable/net/gaim-common
Debian gaim-data 1 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim-data
Debian gaim-data 1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-data
Debian gaim-data 1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-data
Debian gaim-dev 1 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/gaim-dev
Debian gaim-dev 1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/devel/gaim-dev
Debian gaim-dev 1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/devel/gaim-dev
Debian gaim-encryption 2.36-3 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim-encryption
Debian gaim-encryption 2.37-1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-encryption
Debian gaim-encryption 2.38-1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-encryption
Debian gaim-extendedprefs 0.4-4 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim-extendedprefs
Debian gaim-extendedprefs 0.4-4 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-extendedprefs
Debian gaim-extendedprefs 0.4-6 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-extendedprefs
Debian gaim-gnome 1 oldstable http://packages.debian.org/oldstable/net/gaim-gnome
Debian gaim-guifications 2.10-1 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim-guifications
Debian gaim-guifications 2.10-1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-guifications
Debian gaim-guifications 2.10-1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-guifications
Debian gaim-meanwhile 1.2.3-1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-meanwhile
Debian gaim-meanwhile 1.2.3-1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-meanwhile
Debian gaim-otr 2.0.1-1 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim-otr
Debian gaim-otr 2.0.2-1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-otr
Debian gaim-otr 2.0.2-1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-otr
Debian gaim-themes 0.1-1 stable http://packages.debian.org/stable/net/gaim-themes
Debian gaim-themes 0.1-1 testing http://packages.debian.org/testing/net/gaim-themes
Debian gaim-themes 0.1-1 unstable http://packages.debian.org/unstable/net/gaim-themes
Gentoo gaim-blogger 1.0.0 22-03-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-blogger-1.0.0
Gentoo gaim-bnet 0.1.1 04-03-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-bnet-0.1.1
Gentoo gaim-bnet 0.1.0 17-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-bnet-0.1.0
Gentoo gaim-meanwhile 1.2.3 14-06-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-meanwhile-1.2.3
Gentoo gaim-meanwhile 1.2.2 04-05-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-meanwhile-1.2.2
Gentoo gaim-meanwhile 1.2.0 10-04-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-meanwhile-1.2.0
Gentoo gaim-meanwhile 1.0.2 08-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-meanwhile-1.0.2
Gentoo gaim-snpp 0.8.0 21-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-snpp-0.8.0
Gentoo gaim-assistant 0.09 06-01-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-assistant-0.09
Gentoo gaim-assistant 0.07 06-01-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-assistant-0.07
Gentoo gaim-encryption 2.38 12-07-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-encryption-2.38
Gentoo gaim-encryption 2.37 13-05-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-encryption-2.37
Gentoo gaim-encryption 2.36 07-07-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-encryption-2.36
Gentoo gaim-encryption 2.35 27-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-encryption-2.35
Gentoo gaim-encryption 2.34 24-01-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-encryption-2.34
Gentoo gaim-encryption 2.32-r1 07-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-encryption-2.32-r1
Gentoo gaim-extprefs 0.4-r1 04-06-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-extprefs-0.4-r1
Gentoo gaim-extprefs 0.4 30-03-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-extprefs-0.4
Gentoo gaim-latex 0.3 17-06-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-latex-0.3
Gentoo gaim-otr 2.0.2 17-05-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-otr-2.0.2
Gentoo gaim-otr 2.0.1 30-03-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-otr-2.0.1
Gentoo gaim-otr 2.0.0 10-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-otr-2.0.0
Gentoo gaim-otr 1.0.3 09-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-otr-1.0.3
Gentoo gaim-rhythmbox 1.0.0.1 21-10-2004 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-rhythmbox-1.0.0.1
Gentoo gaim-xmms-remote 1.8 29-10-2004 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-xmms-remote-1.8
Gentoo gaim-xmms-remote 1.7 21-10-2004 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-xmms-remote-1.7
Gentoo gaimosd 1.0.0 18-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaimosd-1.0.0
Gentoo gaim-smileys 20031002 24-06-2004 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?gaim-smileys-20031002
Gentoo autoprofile 2.10 21-10-2004 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?autoprofile-2.10
Gentoo bangexec 1.3.0.2 21-06-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?bangexec-1.3.0.2
Gentoo bangexec 1.3.0 21-04-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?bangexec-1.3.0
Gentoo bangexec 1.1.4 03-04-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?bangexec-1.1.4
Gentoo guifications 2.10 10-04-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?guifications-2.10
Gentoo guifications 2.9 11-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?guifications-2.9
Gentoo guifications 2.8 07-02-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?guifications-2.8
Gentoo ignorance 1.3.1.2 13-07-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?ignorance-1.3.1.2
Gentoo ignorance 1.3.0 21-04-2005 http://packages.gentoo.org/ebuilds/?ignorance-1.3.0
Slackware gaim 1.4.0-i486 slackware
The first column is the name of the distribution, the second the name of the package, the third the version number, then the date, repository name and a url linking to more information about the package. Future versions will have package size information, too. Column lengths are fixed, so you can use cut:
whohas vim | grep " vim " | cut -b 36-45
The first bytes of the data fields at the time of writing are 11, 37, 48, 59 and 71.
I would like to encourage distributors at this time to provide web query interfaces to package lists, and specifically provide the following information: package name, version, date, size and a url to further information (maintainer, build information etc.)
Additional remarks: Debian refers to the binary distribution. Slackware queries Current only. All details (including availability, version numbers and binary sizes) are for the x86 architecture, although this cannot be assured for either Debian or Gentoo in the current version of whohas. I recommend you consult the URLs provided in the output.
Bug reports may be sent to phi1ipp@yahoo.com.
Related software
Repology is an open source service to track versions in distros:
pkgs.org is a service for searching Linux/BSD package repositories:
namecheck is a tool from Debian devscripts to check where names are used: