8. Finding Help in GNU/Linux
Most of the applications come come bundled with their own help files, FAQ
(Frequently Asked Questions) and other documentation. Being able to
access information efficiently is just as important as having the
information available in the first place. This chapter will guide you to
uncover the documentation that comes with the applications.
8.1 Man Pages
man is short for manual. Man pages are the mainstay of reference
information. These pages are primarily reference material. Man pages can
be read using terminal emulators. (See section 2.3 Using the Terminal Emulator,
for more on terminal emulators). Start a terminal emulator, and at the
command prompt type
man man
You will get the manual page
for the man command. you can press space bar to advance a page,
Enter or Return to advance a line, b to go back a
page. When done you can press q to quit.
You have to know the application or program for which you are looking up
the man page. The syntax is man <topic>. For example, ls
command is used to list the files in a directory. To find more
information about ls, type man ls. You will find a
synopsis, options, information on reporting bug etc. Most of the man
pages are usually in this format.
8.2 Info Pages
Although man pages are the backbone of the reference material in the
GNU/Linux world, information is presented increasingly in GNU info
format. The syntax for viewing the info page for any program is
info <topic>. Info comes wit its own info page and a
tutorial. Start a terminal emulator and at command prompt type
info info
Go through the tutorial and you will be quite
comfortable with the info help system.
8.3 More Documentation
Literally every program installed in your computer places more
documentation in `/usr/doc/<program_name>' or
`/usr/share/<program_name>' on your system. This is an additional
treasure trove of information. It usually contains a list of authors,
FAQs, additional tips and anything extra that the developers care to
throw in. Most programs will have a file called `README' or
`READ.ME' or `readme.txt' or something similar. This is a
road map of the program's documentation. By ancient convention, if you
find this file you should read this first.
8.4 Programs with no Documentation
What if info and man tells me that the program
foobar is undocumented. Here are some ways to get information on
undocumented programs.
In a terminal emulator type
foobar -? or
foobar -h or
foobar --help
One of them should show you the usage for the program.
8.5 Getting help From LUGs
Linux User Group (LUG) in your city will let you interact with other
users of Linux. Here you can meet people who can help you out of your
woes. However make sure you cannot find your answers in the
documentation that accompanies the software i.e. in its info,man and other
resource pages.
You can find a LUG nearest to you at
Groups of Linux Users Everywhere
(GLUE).
8.6 Tips on info and man
If you prefer using a GUI, here are a couple of painless (and also
colorful) ways of viewing man or info pages. If you want to read man
pages Konqueror makes it easy. For example type man:ls or
#ls into the address bar to see the page for the ls
command.
To browse through Info pages type info:/dir into the address
bar. Konqueror takes you to Info's top level directory then it's just a
matter of clicking on the right links to find the page you want.
Gnome help browser too can be used to read through info or man
pages. To start Gnome help browser, start a terminal emulator and at the
command prompt type
gnome-help-browser
In its address bar
type man:<topic> to get your man pages. And to view info files, in
the address bar type info:<topic> . For example to read the info
page for Emacs type info:emacs in the address bar.
The advantage with viewing man pages like this is that you can switch to
a particular man page you see listed there by just clicking on it.
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