CentOS - Jan 2016 - man and man-db inconsitency

Folks

I use "yum list installed" to determine if a package has been 
installed.  In particular, I was interested in the "man" program, 
installed with the command "yum install man".

In Centos6, if I look at the results, I see that "man" was 
installed.  This is good.
In Centos7, if I look at the results, I see that "man-db" was 
installed.  This is inconsistent.

The result is that the generic algorithm:

   if I want package X , check the "yum list installed" output.
   If X is not listed, install it, otherwise assume it's already installed.

Is there a reason for this inconsistency?  The above algorithm works 
with most other packages.

David

On 1/29/2016 9:22 PM, david wrote:
> Is there a reason for this inconsistency?  The above algorithm works 
> with most other packages. 
what 'algorithm' ?   there's no fixed correlation between program
name
and package name.

for example, the package providing 'iostat' and 'sar' is called
sysstat.

And, some packages change their names in different major releases of an 
OS.  Some packages are dropped entirely in new releases, and other 
packages are added.

-- 
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

> Date: Friday, January 29, 2016 21:32:38 -0800
> From: John R Pierce <pierce at hogranch.com>
>
> On 1/29/2016 9:22 PM, david wrote:
>> Is there a reason for this inconsistency?  The above algorithm
>> works  with most other packages. 
> 
> what 'algorithm' ?   there's no fixed correlation between
program
> name and package name.
> 
> for example, the package providing 'iostat' and 'sar' is
called
> sysstat.
> 
> And, some packages change their names in different major releases
> of an OS.  Some packages are dropped entirely in new releases, and
> other packages are added.
You might see this as an inconsistency at the command->package
mapping level, but it's a consistency/compatibility at the
user/system level. Can you imagine having to go through and change
every script, program and user's memory every time a package name
changed?

Look at /etc/alternatives and the symbolic links in /bin and /sbin
for a range of remappings.

It has been a long time since one looked for a "csh" binary, even if
that's the shell in someone's passwd file entry that has been
brought forward from an older system. Then there's
sendmail->postfix. And, if you want a database, you still enter
"mysql", but now get mariadb.