[Tfug] package/repository confusion

[christopher floess]

Hi everyone. This may seem like it's a bit trivial, but I need to
install xmlrpc-c and I can't find it in my repositories. I've found a
link for it, on the web, but clicking it and clicking install in the
subsequent dialog doesn't work. I could post the error, but what I'm
really concerned about is clearing up why this package doesn't show up
in yast when I search for it.

It also leads to a deeper question, which is, how does one figure out
which repositories contain what? I've added several repositories to
yast, which has allowed me to install things that require proprietory
codecs and what not, but it seems like I'm perpetually searching for
new repositories, and I never know which repositories to add to get
certain softwares to be available to me.

I'm a bit confused about this because things seemed simpler in FreeBSD
where a whereis query even returns things that aren't installed but
are still available by way of the ports tree. It just seems that
getting software installed is more cumbersome than it ought to be. Is
it opensuse? Is ubuntu easier? Thanks for the feedback ~ floose