This section lists all the documentation which MandrakeSoft produced for the current release:
You may also consult our on-line updated versions at: the doc pages.
If you chose the documentation group during installation, selecting from the main menu will display all the documentation for the languages you selected during the installation process.
This manual is intended to get you going with Mandrake Linux. It includes basic topics which should be of interest to new GNU/Linux users, as well as configuration procedures for the most important elements of Mandrake Linux.
Available on-line and in the Mandrake Linux –– PowerPack ProSuite Edition™, this document covers advanced GNU/Linux operations and system administration.
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, 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 are given references to other pages with related subjects (in general in the SEE ALSO section).
You can start by consulting the pages related to the different commands covered in this 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: mknod(2). If you forgot the exact section, man -a mknod will read through all the sections looking for pages named mknod.
info pages complete the documentation included in the manual pages. The command for accessing info pages is info.
Info pages are organized using a tree structure, the top of which is called dir. From there, you can access all info pages.
info may be called up in two ways: either by omitting any argument, thereby placing you at the very top of the tree structure, or by adding a command or a package name, which (if it exists) will open the relevant page. For example:
info emacs |
* Buffers:: |
will indicate a link. Moving the cursor to this link (using the arrow keys) and pressing Enter will take you to the corresponding info page.
You may use the following keyboard shortcuts:
HOWTOs published by the TLDP (The Linux Documentation Project) and available in many languages, will help you configure many aspects of your system. As long as the proper packages are installed (the howto-html-en package for the English edition), HOWTOs will provide you with an answer to a specific question or a solution to a problem. The documentation is located in the /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/HTML/en/ directory. These are HTML files readable and printable with any web browser.
The list is quite long. To get an idea of its length, consult the index from the main menu: -> . When you encounter a complex problem, start by reading the corresponding HOWTO (if it exists, of course!). Not only will you be given a solution to your problem but you will also learn a great deal at the same time. Examples of what is covered range from networking (NET-3-HOWTO), sound card configuration (Sound-HOWTO), the writing of CD media (CD-Writing-HOWTO) as well as NIS and NFS configuration and much much more.
An important step is to check the modification dates of the HOWTO documents –– i.e. the publication date located at the beginning of the document –– to make sure they are up-to-date, otherwise, the information may be invalid. Watch out for old HOWTOs relating to hardware configuration: Linux evolves very quickly in the hardware area. Something else to keep in mind: in the free software world the term “old” carries even more weight than in IT in general: free software may be considered old after being around for fifteen days!
HOWTOs are available on-line on the TLDP web site and likely to be slightly more up-to-date there. Have a look at the following as well: HOWTOs classified by categories, and FAQs.