LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Objective 1: Use and Manage Local System Documentation

Each Linux system is configured by default with extensive documentation from developers, authors, and Linux community members. With these documentation projects combined, your Linux distribution offers a comprehensive body of knowledge to enhance your skills as a sysadmin.

Text Files and Paging

At a fundamental level, documents stored electronically may be encoded in a variety of formats. For example, most word processors use proprietary file formats to store characters, text formatting, and printing control languages. While these relatively modern applications can be found on your Linux system, most of the documents and configuration files for both the operating system and system tools are in plain text.

In the context of Linux systems, plain text means files or streams of both printable characters and control characters. Each is represented using a standard encoding scheme, such as the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) or one of its relatives. Text files are most conveniently viewed using a paging program.

Paging programs

A paging program displays contents of a text file one "page" at a time. Paging programs have the advantage of speed and simplicity over text editors (such as vi) because only pieces of the text files are loaded into a buffer at a time, instead of the entire file. In addition, since paging programs cannot edit file contents directly, unless you tell them to invoke an editor, there isn't ...