Manuals or other information for system users detailing software features and functionality.
2
votes
1answer
576 views
Where can I find detailed documentation on Linux signals?
When we do kill -l we get a list of all the signals that are supported, but is there any man page that describes each signal in detail?
37
votes
3answers
2k views
Purpose of “ASCII text, with overstriking” file format
After downloading the source code for Bash, I was browsing through the doc directory and came across the following files:
bash.1 is a regular troff file used to build the man page.
bash.0 is like a ...
0
votes
3answers
29 views
How to get help for bash variables use from a command line?
Bash has some special or predefined variables, such as $? and $#.
How to know the meaning of those variables use build in command instead of searching online web pages?
I have try to use this:
...
1
vote
2answers
44 views
Where is the hash command documentation?
When I type man hash it shows me man builtin.
I'm trying to understand this line:
hash -r 2>/dev/null || true
What hash -r does and what it returns.
Context:
export PATH="$PWD/bin:$PATH"
hash ...
10
votes
1answer
141 views
Why is the circumflex/caret character used as a symbol for Ctrl?
I started using the Linux console a long time ago but I never questioned myself about the circumflex aka caret character (^). I'd like to ask why it's used as a replacement for the word Ctrl.
I ...
0
votes
0answers
34 views
avconv output_volume option - trying to understand the man page
I'm trying to increase the volume of my input .wav file by means of the output_volume option within the avconv command. I would like to increase the volume by 6 dBs similarly as demonstrated in the ...
1
vote
1answer
35 views
Where is wpa-conf documented?
I use wpa-conf in /etc/network/interfaces to make the WLAN interface automatically connect to the AP:
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. ...
1
vote
2answers
52 views
How are GNU documents in PDF formats created?
Some GNU software doesn't offer PDF files for its manual, e.g. http://www.gnu.org/software/findutils/manual/find.html
Some does, and their PDF files have bookmarks/outlines, e.g. ...
2
votes
2answers
36 views
Reference manuals for network configuration on Fedora/CentOS/RHEL?
Every time I need to configure a network interface on Fedora/CentOS/RHEL I need to access its online documentation to check which configs and values I should use in the ...
1
vote
0answers
56 views
Write my own sound card driver [closed]
I would like to write my own sound card driver, in order to use my output jack as a PWM (to control a motor).
When I run "lspci", the sound card is :
Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 ...
2
votes
0answers
44 views
Look up documentation on C types?
I'm reading over documentation on concurrency in C and trying to learn how to do things concurrently.
As I'm reading, I'm coming across types I've never come across before like tss_t, etc. Is there ...
1
vote
0answers
94 views
How do I convert the complete AMD64 Gentoo Handbook into a PDF from the command-line?
I have been writing shell scripts for converting the AMD64 Handbook of Gentoo Linux to PDF and this is my current shell script:
function ghand {
# Input 1 is the architecture
# Input 2 is the ...
12
votes
2answers
863 views
What is the “2001 article” for blocking “automated retrieval programs” referred to by the wget man page?
The wget man page states this, under the section for the --random-wait parameter:
Some web sites may perform log analysis to identify retrieval
programs such as Wget by looking for ...
21
votes
1answer
541 views
Is there any manual page for colored shell output?
You know, that colorized output made by special char sequences, for example:
echo -e "\e[34m Hello\n \e[0m"
This will produce word "Hello" colored in blue. To do this I had to search on the web, ...
1
vote
1answer
55 views
`man` pages for languages other than C (e.g, python, R, javascript, etc)?
man pages are a phenomenal resource while programming in C on Linux. While looking at someone else's code, if you see something foreign you can immediate research it in another terminal with
$ man 3 ...
1
vote
2answers
43 views
Is there a standard way of locating a package's config files?
Just curious if there is a standard way of locating where a package puts the config files for a program (assuming the documentation for the package doesn't include this information).
The reason way I ...
6
votes
1answer
173 views
Full list of tput options
I wanted to hide the cursor, and I was aware of tput command. I did search its man page. On searching the Internet, I found
$ tput civis # to hide the cursor
$ tput cnorm # to bring back the cursor
...
0
votes
2answers
123 views
Windows Internals for Linux [closed]
I've recently been reading Windows Internals version 6 (from Microsoft Press), and found it thoroughly enjoyable.
I'm now using Kubuntu on my work machine, and as such have some desire to learn a bit ...
0
votes
1answer
83 views
How to do doxygen documentation?
My boss told me do documentation in doxygen and i am new to it. i did google and found you can do codes documentation in doxygen, but what about Details and text documentation which doesn't has codes. ...
16
votes
5answers
2k views
Where is the Programmer's manpage for the open C Function?
I am using debian8 (jessie) and I went to find read the manpage for open.
instead I got a warning:
$ man 3 open
No manual entry for open in section 3
See 'man 7 undocumented' for help when manual ...
4
votes
1answer
485 views
What is udev “urbnum”?
When making a query to the udev system, one attribute that can show up is the urbnum ie:
ATTRS{urbnum}=="538"
I've looked through the documentation, but cannot find any mention of it. Are the ...
0
votes
1answer
32 views
What is docs package and how to use it?
There are some docs package in repository like:
glib2-docs
linux-docs
php-docs
python-docs
What I can undestand form its name (docs) is it kind like documentation or something for the package. And ...
3
votes
4answers
1k views
How to search the whole manual pages on Linux?
Sometimes I need to look up certain words through all the manual pages. I am aware of apropos, but if I understand its manual right, it restricts search to the descriptions only.
Each manual page ...
0
votes
2answers
59 views
Matching btrfs documentation for the version I have?
I want to see if the formatting details I specified are doing what I thought, and generally inspect things after a huge amount of copying to the btrfs file system. Looking through docs, I see btrfs ...
2
votes
1answer
634 views
Where can I find a list of USB error codes?
Every time I boot Debian, the boot log shows a bunch of xhci_hcd problems, and messages like
usb 3-13: hub failed to enable device, error -22
usb 3-13: device descriptor read/8, error -61
I'm ...
0
votes
2answers
39 views
How to find documentation about macros in the manpages?
I've been working on a Routing Protocol and looking at legacy code for different routing protocols. I constantly find different macros where I it is very hard to find it in the header files because ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
Is it safe to empty /usr/share/doc?
I don't need the man pages and documentations on my debian server. Is it save to empty that folder completely to free up some disk-space, by replacing all files in that folder with empty dummy files.
...
2
votes
1answer
244 views
In what section do descriptions of C data-structures go?
I read the following answer QA about what the various sections of the man-pages represent: What do the numbers in a man page mean?
Upon reading it, I wasn't sure what section is for descriptions of C ...
2
votes
1answer
80 views
How to refresh file list in moc?
In moc (music on console), I want to refresh the file list, because I have renamed all files to lowercase and moc still shows uppercase for all files that begin with a number.
The help command (h) ...
2
votes
3answers
63 views
Find command associated with configuration file
Let's say I didn't know what ~/.bashrc is for. Is there a command that would tell me what the file is/does? Other than googling for an answer. The man pages have a files section, maybe there is a way ...
1
vote
1answer
34 views
How do I specify command invocation for a mandatory short or long option?
I'm writing a specification for a tool that needs a -f / --foo option with a mandatory argument BAR, so for example these are valid calls:
tool -f BAR
tool --foo BAR
How do I specify this syntax in ...
2
votes
2answers
656 views
What do square brackets in bash case statement mean?
http://ss64.com/bash/case.html SHOWS
case word in [ [(] pattern [| pattern]...) command-list ;;]... esac
What are square brackets indicating? Other websites omit them (i.e. no [[(] etc.)
...
3
votes
1answer
210 views
How to create Info documentation?
How can I add man page entries for my own power tools? got me thinking: How would one create an Info page?
5
votes
2answers
698 views
How do I look up exit codes for applications?
I'm having difficulty locating a comprehensive up-to-date list of error codes from Bash. e.g.:
$ udevadm info /dev/sdx; echo Exit code $?
Unknown device, --name=, --path=, or absolute path in /dev/ ...
0
votes
3answers
2k views
In the command tar –cvjf foo.tbz a b c, what are a, b, and c?
I know these aren't extra flags to be passed to the tar command, aren't they just files names to be added to the archive?
2
votes
1answer
94 views
Where is using @ before a date string for seconds since the epoch documented?
GNU date and touch commands (and presumably others) use @date to define a date string as seconds since the epoch. For example:
$ TZ=UTC date -d@10
Thu Jan 1 00:00:10 UTC 1970
I was answering a ...
1
vote
2answers
208 views
man pages: meaning of '2' in STAT(2)? [duplicate]
What's the significance of the number, like the 2 in STAT(2), seen in man pages?
For example, man 2 stat yields a man page with STAT(2) at the top and a description that begins, The stat() ...
6
votes
1answer
6k views
Understand `compgen` builtin command
From help compgen:
$ help compgen
compgen: compgen [-abcdefgjksuv] [-o option] [-A action] [-G globpat] [-W wordlist] [-F function] [-C command] [-X filterpat] [-P prefix] [-S suffix] [word]
...
2
votes
1answer
34 views
Force installation of doc packages
I often find myself missing documentation when I happen to be offline. For this reason, I would like to force aptitude to install the corresponding doc packages whenever I install a package. Is there ...
1
vote
3answers
2k views
How to install/make the kernel section 9 manpages which document its functions and data structures?
The kernel sources contain functions and data structures which are documented, for instance in panic.c:
/**
* panic - halt the system
* @fmt: The text string to print
*
* Display a message, ...
3
votes
3answers
308 views
Interactive command usage reference: do you generally have that on Unix?
The question of why some commands rely on manpages whereas others rely on something like the --help flag for providing command usage reference is not new. There is usually a difference in scope ...
4
votes
1answer
63 views
Is there a man section or other doc repository for data structure definitions?
For the millionth time or so I had to look in /usr/include/foo.h to find the members of a struct foo or foo_t or whatever. There's a man section for library and kernel calls, some of which include ...
4
votes
1answer
2k views
Where is the documentation for net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians?
Where is the documentation for net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians sysctl setting? There are man pages for various other TCP/IP/UDP (man 7 tcp, man 7 upd, man 7 ip) settings, but I cant find the ...
3
votes
1answer
129 views
Reading Ubuntu installed magazines
I installed a digital edition of a magazine from the Ubuntu Software Center. But how do I read it?
Is there an accessory tool to access it?
4
votes
1answer
112 views
POSIX usage standards for requiring at least one optional arg
So, I'm writing a CLI for an API, and I ran into a point where one of the commands support has two optional arguments, id and fields
I want to know how to show that these arguments are optional, BUT, ...
0
votes
2answers
88 views
Where can I view a changelog for the sort command
I need to find sort's version when the -V flag was introduced. But I am finding myself some hard time finding the changelog for this command. Where can I view it?
2
votes
1answer
27 views
Correct way to document variable length options in man pages
Sometimes I see usage information like
some_utility [arg [arg [...]]]
or
some_utility [arg[, arg[...]]]
that indicates that you can pass more than one of the same argument.
I've also seen it ...
11
votes
2answers
2k views
How to document my custom bash functions and aliases?
Problem:
I have multiple bash functions and aliases. I can't remember all of them off the top of my head, so I usually end up opening my .bash_functions and .bash_aliases files to find what I need.
...
3
votes
1answer
1k views
Where do I find ioctl EVIOCGRAB documented?
I want to use the ioctl EVIOCGRAB function in a C based program, and from googling around I have found various bits of example source code that use the function, but I am struggling to find explicit ...
3
votes
3answers
808 views
if/then/else man page
I would like to know if there is any man page documenting the construction of the most basic script commands like if/then/else, while, for each, and all the relative switches, like -eq, -e, -ge, and ...
