Table of Contents
Often there are times when you might need help with a specific command, setting up a program, or getting a piece of hardware to work. Maybe you simply want to understand a given command better, or see what other options are available to use with it. Luckily, there are a variety of ways that you can get the help you're looking for. After you have installed Zenwalk you have the option of installing packages from the [extra/f] series which includes FAQs and HOWTOs. Programs also come with help about their options, configuration files, and usage.
The man command (short for "manual") is the traditional form of online documentation in Unix and Linux operating systems. Comprised of specially formatted files, the “man pages”, are written for the vast majority of commands and are distributed with the software itself. Executing man somecommand will display the man page for (naturally) the command specified, in our example this would be the imaginary program somecommand.
As you might imagine, the amount of man pages can quickly add up, becoming overly confusing and seriously complicated, even for an advanced user. So, for this reason, man pages are grouped into enumerated sections. This system has been around for a very long time; enough so that you will often see commands, programs, and even programming library functions referred to with their man section number.
For example :
You might see a reference to man. The numbering tells you that "man" is documented in section 1 (user commands) ; you can specify that you want the section 1 man page for man with the command : man 1 man. Specifying the section that man should look in is useful in the case of multiple items with the same name.
Table 2.1. Man Page Sections
Sections | Contents |
---|---|
Section 1 | user commands (intro only) |
Section 2 | system calls |
Section 3 | C library calls |
Section 4 | devices (e.g., sd, sr) |
Section 5 | file formats and protocols (e.g., wtmp, /etc/passwd, nfs) |
Section 6 | games (intro only) |
Section 7 | conventions, macro packages, etc. (e.g., nroff, ascii) |
Section 8 | system administration (intro only) |
In addition to man, there are the commands whatis and apropos available to you, whose shared purpose is to make it easier to find information in the man system.
The command whatis gives a very brief description of system commands, somewhat in the style of a pocket command reference.
Example :
% whatis whatis whatis (1) - search the whatis database for complete words
The command apropos is used to search for a man page containing a given keyword.
Example :
% apropos wav cdda2wav (1) - a sampling utility that dumps CD audio data into wav sound files netwave_cs (4) - Xircom Creditcard Netwave device driver oggdec (1) - simple decoder, Ogg Vorbis file to PCM audio file (WAV or RAW) wavelan (4) - AT&T GIS WaveLAN ISA device driver wavelan_cs (4) - AT&T GIS WaveLAN PCMCIA device driver wvlan_cs (4) - Lucent WaveLAN/IEEE 802.11 device driver fadeplot (6) - draws a waving ribbon following a sinusoidal path flag (6) - draws a waving flag, containing text or an image interference (6) - decaying sinusoidal waves
If you'd like further information on any of these commands, read their man pages for the details. ;)
The source for most packages that
we build comes with some sort of
documentation : README files, usage
instructions, licence files, etc.
Any sort of documentation that
comes with the source is included
and installed on your system in
the /usr/doc
directory. Each program will (usually)
install its own documentation in the
order of :
/usr/doc/
$program-$version
Where $program
is the name of the program you are wanting
to read about, and
$version
is (obviously) the appropriate version of
software package installed on your system.
For example, to read the documentation for the command man you would want to cd to :
$ cd /usr/doc/man-$version
If reading the appropriate man page(s)
doesn't provide you with enough
information, or address what you're looking
for in particular, the /usr/doc
directory should be your next
stop.
It is in the truest spirit of the
Open Source community that brings us
to the HOWTO/mini-HOWTO collection.
These files are exactly what they
sound like - documents and guides
describing how to do stuff. If you
installed the HOWTO collection, the
HOWTOs will be installed to
/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs
and the mini-HOWTOs to
/usr/doc/Linux-mini-HOWTOs
Also included in the same package series is a collection of FAQs, which is an acronym which stands for :
Frequently |
Asked |
Questions |
These documents are written in a
“Question and Answer”
style for (surprise) Frequently Asked
Questions. The FAQs can often be a
very useful place to look if you're
just looking for a “Quick
Fix” to something. If
you decide to install the FAQs, you
will find them installed to
/usr/doc/Linux-FAQs
directory.
These files are well worth reading whenever you're not quite sure to proceed with something. They cover an amazing range of topics, more often than not in a surprisingly detailed manner. Good stuff !