man - format and display the on-line manual pages
0
votes
2answers
44 views
Debian - install missing man pages?
I run RaspBMC - a distro based on Raspbian, that's a custom minimal Debian for the Raspberry Pi.
If I recall correctly, the man utility is NOT installed by default with RaspBMC (although I may be ...
0
votes
0answers
27 views
How do I extract information about a single option from a manpage? [duplicate]
The Backstory
The other day, I saw the command wget -r -nc -p <someurl>. I didn't know what the -p option did, so I opened up the wget(1) manpage. I began searching through the manpage for a ...
0
votes
0answers
28 views
Man displaying groff control characters
Man is displaying groff control characters after I compiled a later version of groff. For example, when I try to view groff's man page:
GROFF(1) General Commands Manual ...
2
votes
0answers
40 views
man path and 'man foo' vs. 'man -k foo'
I have a set of man pages in a non-standard location; however, the location is on my MANPATH (and I verified this with man --path). When I do
man fst-infl
(where fst-infl has a man page in this ...
-2
votes
3answers
46 views
Auto continuous scrolling of man output
When I execute man foo the terminal shows only the first page and then pauses. Then I have to manually press the keys to scroll here and there.
After executing man foo how do I get an output which is ...
18
votes
3answers
908 views
What is GNU Info for?
I understand what GNU Info is and how to use it, but what is it for? Why does it exist in parallel to the man pages? Why not write detailed man pages rather than provide a separate utility?
1
vote
0answers
29 views
Install man pages in directory with update-alternatives
Using update-alternatives(8) on a Debian system it is possible to add man pages as slaves under some master alternative.
For example, the following command installs an alternative man page tclsh.1 ...
10
votes
2answers
259 views
Why do Unix man pages use double backticks in place of double quotes?
I've noticed that man pages and other documents formatted by Unix utilities often use double backticks `` followed by double single quotes '' to wrap quoted phrases instead of the double quote ...
3
votes
2answers
58 views
How do I know which library and man page will be found first?
With binaries, I can always do which foo to know which binary I am invoking with $ foo, but what about man pages? Is there a way to know the path of the man page will be loaded by default?
Similarly, ...
3
votes
1answer
58 views
convert man output to ebook format
I can convert man output to PDF. First, man -t grep >grep.ps (grep is just an example; I am not looking for mobile version of grep man page). Then Adobe Distiller converts PostScript to PDF. ...
2
votes
4answers
106 views
Ctrl-s hang terminal emulator?
I came across a sentence in vimdoc:
Note: CTRL-S does not work on all terminals and might block
further input, use CTRL-Q to get going again.
and this key indeed hangs my vim. I was ...
4
votes
1answer
85 views
How should man pages be installed?
When distributing a custom utility I'll typically write a makefile that installs binaries to /usr/local by default
PREFIX ?= /usr/local
MANPREFIX ?= ${PREFIX}/man
install:
install utility ...
1
vote
1answer
36 views
head command options and reading man files
I have two environments: Mac and Linux.
I wonder about the head command:
it can show just 2 lines of text if I invoke it like so:
vim --version | head -2
I saw this online and ran to the man page ...
1
vote
2answers
112 views
How do I make the 'man' utility as comprehensive as ss64.com?
The 'man' utility that comes with a Debian distro is not as comprehensive as ss64.com, and in environment like cygwin, it is even more so. Is there a software or a script that will make my 'man' more ...
2
votes
0answers
74 views
Using symbolic links and git to manage build versions
In general I follow the following workflow when I build any program (e.g. emacs, tmux, etc.)
/home/opt/[name of the program]/builds/[version]/
bin
lib
share
For example for a program like tmux I ...
1
vote
1answer
73 views
What does the number mean in a man page? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What do the numbers in a man page mean?
If I typeman ls, I seeLS(1) in the top left and top right corners of the manpage.
I also see programs on the internet being ...
2
votes
2answers
50 views
Why does “User Contributed Perl Documentation” show up when I look for 'man' pages
When I
man -f <some string>
in addition to the expected Unix man pages, I get a bunch of odd looking entries that all have the header "User Contributed Perl Documentation". For example
man ...
1
vote
0answers
23 views
How do the various configuration files determine MANPATH on Darwin?
On Darwin (12.2.0, OS X 10.8.2, bash 3.2.48(1)) my MANPATH appears to be determined by my PATH rather than by the various configuration files associated with man and the man path, /etc/manpaths, ...
2
votes
1answer
77 views
How is the path to search for 'man' pages set?
I'm puzzled by how the path used for finding man pages is set. The "right thing" seems to happen magically. For example, if change my PATH from
...
2
votes
3answers
73 views
How do you output an info page to pdf?
If man -t ls | ps2pdf - > ls.pdf is useful for outputting the ls man page via ps2pdf to pdf, what about info pages?
I've tried something like the following but with no success:
info -o info | ...
16
votes
1answer
327 views
How does “man” restore the screen when I quit the program?
If I open a man page of a program like cat or ls, it prints (may not be the appropriate word) the contents of the man page and when I press q, it shows the screen just like before invoking the man ...
1
vote
1answer
151 views
How do I better read man pages?
How do I search man pages for options? I currently do this:
/-<option>
Example:
To see what grep -i does, I do this:
man grep
and then
/-i.
Or, I can do this:
man grep | grep .-i
Is ...
-3
votes
1answer
98 views
How to operate USE flags? Is there a master class on Portage or Gentoo?
What man pages I need to read first?
4
votes
1answer
131 views
What does this tcpdump line means?
Reading the manpage of tcpdump I found this example
tcpdump 'tcp[tcpflags] & (tcp-syn|tcp-fin) != 0 and not src and dst net localnet'
but I don't understand it, especially the last part.
The ...
1
vote
1answer
62 views
What means the “integer argument” in system call descriptions? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What do the numbers in a man page mean?
All system calls described in manpages have an associated number such as exec(3). What is the meaning of this number?
3
votes
1answer
170 views
man gives the error about locale
I have
$ locale
LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=ru_RU.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE=ru_RU.UTF-8
LC_MONETARY=ru_RU.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
LC_PAPER=ru_RU.UTF-8
...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
What units of time does “top” use?
If I issue the "top" command and receive results such as:
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
00001 bob 25 0 77380 1212 1200 R 95.8 0.0 89122:13 fee
...
3
votes
1answer
50 views
How can you change the format command used by man?
I'd like to define a new command that prints man pages to PostScript, but using a page size different than the default. For example, on Mac OS X you can run
man -t ls | open -f -a Skim
to open the ...
2
votes
4answers
365 views
how to word wrap, align text like the output of man?
what is the command that word wraps and justifies a text file so that the output looks like that of a man page:
All of these system calls are used to wait for state
changes in a child ...
1
vote
2answers
201 views
Copying man pages from tmux copy mode
I am in xterm on Pangolin, inside a tmux session, in copy mode. I am trying to copy the text of a man page but what I yank into the clipboard by using the simple vi bindings of spacebar/enter is text ...
4
votes
3answers
609 views
On Ubuntu Linux, is it normal for mandb to run continuously (apparently in the background)?
I have access to a Ubuntu Linux node at my institution. The nodes are shared among the group, but typically I am the only person who uses this particular node.
I am running a calculation in parallel ...
4
votes
1answer
120 views
unixODBC documentation / manpage?
Just wondering if there is any official documentation for unixODBC, e.g. how the configuration files have to look like and what parameters they expect? (I am using only a shell, no GUI) Even ...
5
votes
2answers
105 views
How to print (part of) a man page?
The question is: how do you print only part of a man page?
Currently I do zcat manpage.1.gz | vim - and just remove everything I don't want to print. Then I pass that through groff and lpr. Are there ...
5
votes
3answers
140 views
How do I check man pages for what single parameter of the command does?
Example: I am using tar -zxvf command but I don't know what 'x' stands for.
How can I check this single parameter without having to scroll all the way through man tar?
5
votes
1answer
206 views
Emacs mode for man pages
I'm translating man pages, and have run in to a few problems with Emacs.
How do you specify language? (With man, it looks like this man -Lsv shutdown for the Swedish "sv" subdirectory, if ...
2
votes
1answer
102 views
Where is tcl-doc man page stored?
I installed tcl-doc. Prior to installation "man tcl" gave nothing. Now it gives a page.
When I do
"dpkg -L tcl-doc" I get
/.
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/tcl-doc
...
7
votes
2answers
263 views
How do you output a list of all man pages in a particular section?
A man page for fork, for example, is in the System Calls section that has number 2:
man 2 fork
How do you see what else is section 2 without resorting to Google?
3
votes
3answers
649 views
localization of man pages on Linux (Ubuntu)
Is there an option to output a manual page in a different language? I don't want to change the computer language completely, but only specific manual pages.
For example
$ man -English man
Man is a ...
7
votes
2answers
367 views
Find and install man file manually
I seem to be missing some man pages, notably gcc and g++. It doesn't help that I specify the section. whereis doesn't list man pages for those two, so I think they are simply not there.
With Google I ...
1
vote
1answer
101 views
How do I localize man pages for chinese?
Doing the prerequisite google search didn't turn up anything: I'm looking for a way to install and use localized chinese versions of the man pages (assuming there is some localized package somewhere).
...
6
votes
4answers
310 views
View man page of not installed package?
On Debian based systems, can one view the man page of packages that aren't yet installed? I want to check what they are capable first, before installing them. Thanks for any hint :-)
1
vote
1answer
87 views
attr man page missing?
How does one search for certain manpages (such as http://linux.die.net/man/5/attr)? Trying:
man attr
and
man -K attr
don't seem to work.
Any ideas why?
2
votes
2answers
106 views
Archive of QNX's use messages?
Context
I do not know all standard linux/unix commands, so I need manpages.
I found QNX's manuals (invoked by "use [command name]") terse; I prefer them to linux manpages.
I can get them from QNX ...
5
votes
1answer
98 views
Nested lists in man page
I have a command line parameter that takes a number of flags afterwards, which I would like to have as a list inside the parameter list in the man page.
Currently I am simply making lines of Flag - ...
-1
votes
1answer
54 views
About the command and the number in the man [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What do the numbers in a man page mean?
such as:
http://www.postfix.org/qmgr.8.html
The qmgr(8) daemon awaits t
what's the meaning of 8?
just don't know it.
3
votes
2answers
479 views
Can I create a man page for a script? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I add man page entries for my own power tools?
Most (if not all) Linux commands have their man pages that describe their usage options etc.
Can I create similar ...
3
votes
2answers
281 views
Why “man CMD” shows nothing?
After I ran man ls, it shows:
Man: find all matching manual pages
* ls (1)
ls (1p)
Man: What manual page do you want?
Man:
After I entered "1", it shows nothing but "Manual page ls(1) ...
3
votes
2answers
114 views
National characters in manpages
I am trying to get a proper display of national characters with FreeBSD man.
I have tried running the following on 8.1 and 9.0:
# PAGER=less LANG="pl_PL.UTF-8" man -d -M. ./man.1
-- Using ...
-5
votes
2answers
2k views
The most brutal man page [closed]
What is the most brutal man page that ever exists? Some man pages are hard to read / understand since they aren't well written / complete in term of details but some exist although they are ...
1
vote
2answers
251 views
How do I find the relevant command for something in linux?
For example, say I'm trying to find the command that displays the routing table (like route) or to run a traceroute, but I don't actually know the commands that accomplish this. My understanding is ...
