Really Really useful LaTeX symbol list: The Great Big List of LaTeX Symbols.

One of the problems, disadvantages not really a problem, with using a modular word processing system like LaTeX is that with all the development spread out and independent like the Bazaar versus the Microsoft Office cathedral  (Eric S. Raymond) is that there is probably at least one solution for your problem - perhaps seven, but there is no single way to find them unless you comb through many many websites, searches etc. etc.

Well, here is one way to find things in LaTeX:  The Great Big List of LaTeX Symbols.

http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/LaTeX_symbols.pdf


This is a good starting point for anyone looking for something, it should save many searches.

One way people can contribute without writing code is to make it easier for others to use.

How to find apt in Ubuntu

So I was looking for the Xerces-c Compiler library so I could run blahtex and make a nicer epub for my poker book (below)




















because I wrote it with LaTex using Olaf's cool poker card style file.

The biggest problem with package management tools like yum and apt / apt-get  for linux and their databases of really what are source files is a very simple problem; over time the developers - all eager beavers - change the names or upgrade versions of that same library set and that causes people constant problem of finding the right packages to install.   The Linux user community is so large and effective that this is a constant problem.  Lots of people take on old software and make it better. Just try installing GCC and see what I mean.  Half my Google searches are a direct result of not knowing the name of the packages.

So today while working on my ubuntu machine, I found a way to search the database for a fragment that might make sense. 

apt-cache search libxerces

I was able to look into the database and find this:



 apt-cache search libxerces

libxerces2-java - Validating XML parser for Java with DOM level 3 support
libxerces2-java-doc - Validating XML parser for Java -- Documentation and examples
libxerces2-java-gcj - Validating XML parser for Java with DOM level 3 support (native code)
libxerces-c-dev - validating XML parser library for C++ (development files)
libxerces-c-doc - validating XML parser library for C++ (documentation)
libxerces-c-samples - validating XML parser library for C++ (compiled samples)
libxerces-c2-dev - validating XML parser library for C++ (development files)
libxerces-c2-doc - validating XML parser library for C++ (documentation)
libxerces-c28 - validating XML parser library for C++
libxerces-c3.1 - validating XML parser library for C++

So if you are looking into a Debian/Ubuntu based distribution with apt then try the apt-cache search.