Accessing Documentation

It is not possible, nor is it profitable, for this documentation to contain a complete description of every package available at this site. These packages have their own documentation (that is more complete) and the purpose of the following is to explain how it is accessed. This documentation is described as online in the sense that it is found on the system, as opposed to a hard copy.

The canonical form of documentation in Unix and Unix-like operating systems is the man page (man being a truncation of manual). These pages are a single document and they are grouped into sections based on their contents (e.g. user commands, file formats, etc.). A page is identified in text by its name, usually in boldface, followed by its section in parentheses. Pages are accessed using the command man(1).

$ man
What manual page do you want?
For example, try 'man man'.

The commands apropos(1) and whatis(1) will search the document for pages related to a given term. The former is broader (across names and descriptions), the latter is narrower (across names only).

$ apropos man
...
$ whatis man
...

Pages exist for apropos(1), man(1), and whatis(1) and details on common formatting conventions are found on the page man-pages(7).

$ man 7 man-pages

While there are many pages, there is not a guarantee one will exist.

$ man foo
No manual entry for foo