Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Tiger Edition

chapter 14: the freebie programs 461

Getting help

Mac OS X comes with nearly 900 Unix programs. How are you supposed to learn

what they all do? Fortunately, almost every Unix program comes with its own little

help file. It may not appear within an elegant Mac OS X window—in fact, it’s pretty

darned plain—but it offers much more material than the regular Mac Help Center.

These help files are called user-manual pages, or manpages, which hold descriptions

of virtually every command and program available. Mac OS X, in fact, comes with

manpages on about 4,000 topics—about 9,000 printed pages’ worth. Unfortunately,

manpages rarely have the clarity of writing or the learner-focused approach you’ll

find in the Mac Help Center. They’re generally terse, just-the-facts descriptions. In

fact, you’ll probably find yourself needing to reread certain sections again and again.

The information they contain, however, is invaluable to new and experienced users

alike, and the effort spent mining them is usually worthwhile.

To access the manpage for a given command, type man followed by the name of the

command you’re researching. For example, to view the manpage for the ls command,

enter: man ls. Now the manual appears, one screen at a time, as shown in Figure

14-45.

For more information on using man, view its own manpage by entering—what

else?—man man.

Tip: The free program ManOpen, available for