OK, but I didn't even know that "apt-cache search" existed until you just mentioned it. I like the idea of debian but I usually get stuck using CentOS. So I think that might count as evidence in favor of doing something in the ball park of what I suggested, just with the right filter on what's included and excluded? Probably much of the value of the deck would be (1) figuring out which things are useful enough to know about that would seriously help someone if they forgot about them or were ignorant in the first place and (2) making those decisions available for other people to memorize without having to do all the prioritization and searching.

Also, that example seems to confirm the idea that some kind of overview of "library science and reference searching and help navigation" techniques would be really useful. When I punch "library" into Anki there are only two decks so far, one for the built in functions of python and one connecting locations on a map to their chinese name. Both come up because they mention a URL that has "library" in the directory structure rather than because they're aimed at what I want.

So I suspect that no user of Anki with enough skills to make and publish decks has thought about these issues for very long? Or I'm on the wrong track with my thinking? Perhaps Anki can't really improve on the XKCD problem solving flowchart? Hmmm...