I was playing around with texlive package recently and found out that there is a way to install tex style packages with yum install 'tex(package.sty)' command. I've never seen package name was specified like that before. Skimming through yum man page didn't yield relevant information.After some googling I found mentions of possibility of installing Perl modules in a similar fashion, e.g. yum install 'perl(Net::Telnet)'. Though it didn't work for me.Can someone please provide more information on this type of specifying package name with yum? Are there other packages (besides tex) modules for which can be installed in a similar way? Can I get a list of such packages on my system? Is this an extra functionality that is added to yum as a plugin during installation of a corresponding package (texlive in this case)?Linux Distro: CentOS 7
Yum installation of package specific modules
linux;centos;rhel;yum;latex
The packages perl(Net::Telnet) are what are called virtual packages. They exist only in name and are essentially an alias for the real package whose name is really perl-Net-Telnet. These packages come into existence through their definition within the .spec file as provides or requires. You can see some here in this package, perl-Net-HTTP:$ more $HOME/rpmbuild/SPECS/perl-Net-HTTP.spec...BuildRequires:  perl(IO::Socket::IP)BuildRequires:  perl(IO::Socket::SSL) >= 1.38BuildRequires:  perl(IO::Uncompress::Gunzip)BuildRequires:  perl(Symbol)BuildRequires:  perl(URI)BuildRequires:  perl(vars)The advantage of specifying the package names like this is that dependencies do not have to rely on specific version numbers. Here a dependency can say, I only need any old version of X.NOTE: These names only work when doing a yum install 'perl(X)' they do not work with yum search or yum info, for example. If you take a look at the yum man page it discusses the true names of packages that are guaranteed to work with all of YUM's commands in the SPECIFYING PACKAGE NAMES section.How else can you tell?If you attempt to do an install of one of these and enable yum's verbose messaging you'll see hints:$ sudo yum --verbose install perl(Net::HTTP)Not loading blacklist plugin, as it is disabledLoading fastestmirror pluginLoading langpacks pluginLoading refresh-packagekit pluginLoading tsflags pluginNot loading whiteout plugin, as it is disabledAdding en_US to language listConfig time: 0.015Adding en_US to language listYum version: 3.4.3rpmdb time: 0.000Setting up Package SacksLoading mirror speeds from cached hostfile * fedora: mirror.nexcess.net * rpmfusion-free: mirror.pw * rpmfusion-free-updates: mirror.pw * rpmfusion-nonfree: mirror.pw * rpmfusion-nonfree-updates: mirror.pw * updates: mirror.nexcess.netpkgsack time: 0.043Checking for virtual provide or file-provide for perl(Net::HTTP)Obs Init time: 0.385Package perl-Net-HTTP-6.06-4.fc20.noarch already installed and latest versionNothing to doNotice the mentions of virtual provide and file-provide? These are the dependency engine in yum looking for packages that provide what you specified in name, i.e. perl(Net::HTTP), on other packages looking for matches.You can also lean on repoquery to show you this relationship as well:$ repoquery -a --whatprovides 'perl(Net::HTTP)'perl-Net-HTTP-0:6.06-4.fc20.noarchReferencesMaximum RPM: Taking the Red Hat Package Manager to the Limit - Chapter 14. Adding Dependency Information to a Package