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Fedora Linux
book

Fedora Linux

by Chris Tyler
October 2006
Beginner
658 pages
17h 17m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Fedora Linux

Accessing Online Documentation

A fully loaded Fedora system includes over 4,700 programs, plus programming interfaces, data files, and graphical tools. To help you learn your way around, over 12,000 files of online documentation are available, with additional documentation available through the Web. Knowing how to access and knowledgeably navigate through this documentation is essential to getting the most out of your Fedora system.

Tip

The phrase online documentation refers to both local and Internet-based electronic documentation.

How Do I Do That?

There are five main types of documentation available:

  • Manpages

  • info pages

  • The GNOME Guides and KDE Manuals

  • HOWTOs and guides from the Linux Documentation Project

  • Text files distributed with applications

Using manpages

Fedora continues the Unix tradition of providing an online version of what were originally loose-leaf printed manuals. These manuals cover the commands, programming interfaces, and data formats used by the system.

The command used to access these online manuals is called man, so these documents have come to be known as manpages. The majority of Fedora documentation is in this format.

The pages are arranged into sections according to the original binders, using the section numbers described in Table 4-2. The section numbers are used to distinguish different manpages with the same name, such as the manpage for the uname system call (found in section 2) and the uname command (found in section 1). In some cases, a letter or two ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596526822Errata Page