GNU/Linux Useful Resources

Abstract

In this section we present resources useful for any GNU/Linux distribution. Most are not written specifically for Mandrakelinux, but might prove useful likewise.

The /usr/share/doc Directory

Most packages include their own documentation in one of /usr/share/doc's sub-directories, which will be named after the specific package. Mandrakelinux's own documentation, when installed, is available in the /usr/share/doc/mandrake/ directory.

The Man Pages

Abstract

The Manual Pages (also known as “man pages”) are a set of documents which you can read in order to better understand GNU/Linux commands. The latter are usually issued through a “command line” and allow great control over your system (see the Introduction to the Command Line chapter of the Reference Manual). Although these man pages might seem discouraging at first, they offer great detail and we encourage you to browse through them when a problem occurs.

This should be your primary source of information on a day-to-day basis. Almost all commands have a manual page. Other items, such as certain configuration files, library functions for programmers and others system aspects also have their own man pages.

Man page contents are arranged in different sections. References to these are made in the following manner: for example, open(2), fstab(5) will respectively refer to the open page in section 2 and the fstab page in section 5.

To display a manual page in a terminal (or shell), type man. The syntax for obtaining a man page is:

man [options] [section] <manual page>

man also has documentation, which can be obtained by typing man man. Manual pages are formatted and then displayed using the less pager.

The names of the manual pages and their relevant sections appear at the top of each page. At the bottom of the page you will find references to other pages with related subjects (usually in the SEE ALSO section).

You can start by consulting the pages related to the different commands covered in the Reference Manual: ls(1), chmod(1), etc.

If you cannot find the right manual page — for example, you want to use the mknod function in one of your programs but you end up on the mknod command page — make sure you spell out the section explicitly. In our example: man 2 mknod. If you forgot the exact section, man -a mknod will read through all the sections looking for pages named mknod.

[Tip]Tip

You can also display man pages in Konqueror by using the man:/ prefix in your URL. For example, to display the man page for fstab(5), type in the Location field: man:/fstab(5)