Getting the Most from the Linux Manual

The owners guide for you Linux system is found in the manual pages. Take a look...

The configuration file

/etc/man.config

#
# Generated automatically from man.config.in by the
# configure script.
#
# man.config
#
# This file is read by man to configure the default manpath (also used
# when MANPATH contains an empty substring), to find out where the cat
# pages corresponding to given man pages should be stored,
# and to map each PATH element to a manpath element.
# It may also record the pathname of the man binary. [This is unused.]
# The format is:
#
# MANBIN		pathname
# MANPATH		manpath_element	[corresponding_catdir]
# MANPATH_MAP		path_element	manpath_element
#
# If no catdir is given, it is assumed to be equal to the mandir
# (so that this dir has both man1 etc. and cat1 etc. subdirs).
# Certain versions of the FSSTND recommend putting formatted versions
# of /usr/foopath/man/manx/page.x into /var/catman/foopath/catx/page.x.
# The keyword FSSTND will enable this peculiar behaviour.
# Explicitly given catdirs override.
#
FSSTND
#
# This file is also read by man in order to find how to call nroff, less, etc.,
# and to determine the correspondence between extensions and decompressors.
#
# MANBIN		/usr/local/bin/man
#
# Every automatically generated MANPATH includes these fields
#
MANPATH	/usr/man
MANPATH	/usr/local/man
MANPATH	/usr/X11R6/man
#
# Set up PATH to MANPATH mapping
#
# (these mappings are superfluous when the right hand side is
# in the mandatory manpath already, but will keep man from statting
# lots of other nearby files and directories)
#
MANPATH_MAP	/bin			/usr/man
MANPATH_MAP	/sbin			/usr/man
MANPATH_MAP	/usr/bin		/usr/man
MANPATH_MAP	/usr/local/bin		/usr/local/man
MANPATH_MAP	/usr/X11R6/bin		/usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP	/usr/bin/X11		/usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP	/usr/bin/mh		/usr/man
#
# Useful paths - note that COL should not be defined when
# NROFF is defined as "groff -Tascii" or "groff -Tlatin1";
# not only is it superfluous, but it actually damages the output.
#
TROFF		/usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc
NROFF		/usr/bin/groff -Tascii -mandoc
EQN		/usr/bin/geqn -Tps
NEQN		/usr/bin/geqn -Tascii
TBL		/usr/bin/gtbl
# COL		/usr/bin/col
REFER		/usr/bin/grefer
PIC		/usr/bin/gpic
VGRIND		
GRAP		
PAGER		/usr/bin/less -is
CAT		/bin/cat
#
# The command "man -a xyzzy" will show all man pages for xyzzy.
# When CMP is defined man will try to avoid showing the same
# text twice.
#
CMP		/usr/bin/cmp -s
#
# Compress cat pages
#
COMPRESS	/bin/gzip
COMPRESS_EXT	.gz
#
# Default manual sections (and order) to search if -S is not specified
# and the MANSECT environment variable is not set.
#
MANSECT		1:8:2:3:4:5:6:7:9:tcl:n:l:p:o
#
# Decompress with given decompressor when input file has given extension
# The command given must act as a filter.
#
.gz		/bin/gunzip -c
.z		/bin/gunzip -c
.Z		/usr/bin/zcat
.F		
.Y		
MANPATH /usr/openwin/man

The Pages You'll See

MANPATH

manual page search path environmental variable

man -M /some_path command

overrides default and MANPATH search path

man -a command

display all matching pages in search path

man [123456789n] command

man -S [123456789ln] command

display manual page from selected section [123456789ln]

Directory   Section Name
---------   ------------
man1        (1) User Commands
man2        (2) System Calls
man3        (3) Subroutines
man4        (4) Devices
man5        (5) File Formats
man6        (6) Games       
man7        (7) Miscellaneous
man8        (8) Sys. Administration
manl        (l) Local
mann        (n) New

man -w command

display location of matching pages in search path

man -aw command

display location of all matching pages in search path

How You'll See It

MANPAGER

the program to use to display the man page

PAGER

the program to use to display the man page if MANPAGER not set

/usr/bin/groff -Tascii -mandoc file.man

manually format a manual page file

Finding Information

man -K string

search text of all manpages for `string'

man -k string

search the whatis database for strings

apropos(1)

NAME

apropos - search the whatis database for strings

SYNOPSIS

apropos keyword ...

DESCRIPTION

apropos searches a set of database files containing short descriptions of system commands for keywords and displays the result on the standard output.

SEE ALSO

whatis(1), man(1).

man -f string

search the whatis database for complete words

whatis(1)

NAME

whatis - search the whatis database for complete words.

SYNOPSIS

whatis keyword ...

DESCRIPTION

whatis searches a set of database files containing short descriptions of system commands for keywords and displays the result on the standard output. Only complete word matches are displayed.

The whatis database is created using the command /usr/sbin/makewhatis.

SEE ALSO

apropos(1), man(1).

for i in `ls /usr/man/man?/*`
do
  /usr/bin/groff -Tascii -mandoc $i | less -CeM
done

learn everything there is to know about linux

Last Modified: 14 April 1997