#use wml::debian::template title="How to use the Debian Search Engine" MAINPAGE="true"
The Debian project offers its own search engine at https://search.debian.org/. Here are some tips on how to use it and start simple searches as well as more complex searches with Boolean operators.
The simplest way to use the engine is to enter a single word in the search field and hit [Enter]. Alternatively, you can click the Search button. The search engine will then return all pages on our website which contain that word. For most searches, this should give you good results.
Alternatively, you can search for more than one word. Again, you should see all pages of the Debian website which contain all words you entered. To search for phrases, put them in quotation marks ("). Please note that the search engine is not case-sensitive, so searching for gcc
matches "gcc" as well as "GCC".
Below the search field you can decide how many results per page you'd like to see. It's also possible to choose a different language; the Debian website search supports almost 40 different languages.
If a simple search is not sufficient, you can use Boolean search operators. You can choose between AND, OR, and NOT or combine all three. Please make sure to use capital letters for all operators, so that the search engine recognizes them.
gcc AND patch
finds all pages that contain both, "gcc" and "patch". In this case you will get the same results as when searching for gcc patch
, but an explicit AND
can be useful in combination with other operators.gcc OR patch
finds any page which contains either "gcc" or "patch".gcc NOT patch
finds all which contain "gcc", but not "patch". gcc AND NOT patch
gives you the same results, but searching for NOT patch
is not supported.(gcc OR make) NOT patch
will find all pages which contain either "gcc" or "make", but do not contain "patch".