Finding the Online Docs

Man Pages

• Man stands for manual
• Type man and the name of a program, and you can read about it
• man ls
• Try man XF86Config

But man can get a bit complicated

• type man chmod
• Now type man 2 chmod
• There are two different references to chmod
• Type man -k chmod to see the list of the different entries based on keywords
• Now type man -k printf, and you see many options

Texinfo: Also known as Info

• Texinfo is superior to man in that it supports the idea of hyperlinks
• info, however, is not as complete as man
• There is a movement afoot to move from man to texinfo
• Some man pages just refer you to the texinfo documents

Navigating in info

• Take the tutorial by type info at the command prompt and then typing h
• The key commands are N for next, P for previous, and U for up.
• In many places you can access the M command for using the menu
• Type M and then gcc or CVS
• Go to a line that begins with an asterisk, and then push enter

Putting info to the Test

• Let's look for chmod in info
• Okay, let's try printf
• Finally, let's try emacs

HOWTO

• Go to /usr/share/doc and type ls
• Let's try the zip directory
• cat MANUAL | less
• Now run man zip