Getting Help
If you need more information than this book provides, there are several things you can do.
-
Run the
man
command The
man
command displays an online manual page, or manpage, for a given program. For example, to learn about listing files withls
, run:$ man ls
To search for manpages by keyword for a particular topic, use the
-k
option followed by the keyword:$ man -k database
-
Run the
info
command The
info
command is an extended, hypertext help system covering many Linux programs.$ info ls
While
info
is running, some useful keystrokes are:To get help, type
h
To quit, type
q
To page forward and backward, use the space bar and Backspace keys
To jump between hyperlinks, press TAB
To follow a hyperlink, press Enter
If
info
has no documentation on a given program, it displays the program’s manpage. For a listing of available documentation, typeinfo
by itself. To learn how to navigate the info system, typeinfo info
.-
Use the
--help
option (if any) Many Linux commands respond to the option
--help
by printing a short help message. Try:$ ls --help
If the output is longer than the screen, pipe it into the
less
program to display it in pages (pressq
to quit):$ ls --help | less
- Examine the directory /usr/share/doc
This directory contains supporting documents for many programs, usually organized by program name and version. For example, files for the text editor emacs, version 23, are likely found (depending on distro) in /usr/share/doc/emacs23.
- GNOME and KDE Help
For help with GNOME or KDE, ...
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