| Linux-Mandrake: |
| User Guide and |
| Reference Manual |
MandrakeSoft
January 2000 http://www.linux-mandrake.com
In addition to the manuals included with Linux-Mandrake, many other sources of documentation are available. On the following pages we'll offer some suggestions which you may find useful.
This is a primary source of information on a day-to-day basis. Practically every command has its manual page, but there are also manual pages on the format of certain configuration files, on the library functions for programmers, and others.
The manual pages are arranged in different sections, and you will often
see in documents references to "open(2)",
"fstab(5)" or others, which means respectively
the manual page of open in section 2 and the manual page of
fstab in section 5.
The command for displaying a manual page is man, and its
syntax is as follows:
man [options] [section] <manual page>
There is even a manual page for man itself: man man.
Manual pages are formatted then displayed using the less
pager by default. So you already know how to browse through and
quit a manual page :)
At the top of each manual page you will see the name of the page and the
section of the manual which this page belongs to; at the bottom of the
manual page (in general in the SEE ALSO section)
you'll see references to other manual pages related to the one you are
looking at.
You can start by consulting the manual pages for the different commands
which have been covered in this manual: man ls,
man chmod, etc.
If you don't find the right manual page (for example, if you want to use
the function mknod in one of your programs but end up on the
manual page for the mknod command), you need to mention the
section explicitly: in this case it is man 2 mknod, or if you
can no longer remember the exact section, man -a mknod will
go through all the sections looking for manual pages named
mknod.
info pages are another source source of documentation which are
more complete than manual pages. The command for accessing info
pages is info.
The info pages are arranged in the form of a tree structure with
its top called dir. From the top, you can access all existing
info pages.
You can call up info in two ways: either with no argument, in which case you will find yourself at the top of the tree structure, or followed by a command or package name, in which case the corresponding page, if it exists, will be opened. For example:
$ info emacs
In the info pages, text like this:
* Buffers::
indicates a link. If you move the cursor to this link (using the arrow
keys) and press Enter, you will then be taken to the
corresponding info page.
The following keyboard shortcuts exist:
'u': for Up, goes to the level above;
'n': for Next, goes to the next info page
in this level of the tree structure;
'p': for Prev, goes to the previous info
page.There are a large number of commands, which you can list by typing
'?'.
HOWTOs are documents published by the LDP
(Linux Documentation Project), dedicated to the
configuration of many aspects of your system. HOWTOs exist in many
languages and you are likely to find a document that answers your
specific question or problem on your hard disk, as long as you have
installed the corresponding packages (this is the howto package
for the English edition). They are located in the directory
/usr/doc/HOWTO. Their primary form is text files, but they are
also available in HTML for reading with a web browser, and
PostScript for printing.
The list is very long: to get an idea, type the command:
ls /usr/doc/HOWTO/*-HOWTO | less. If you encounter a problem
which you are unable to resolve, finding and reading the corresponding
HOWTO if it exists is the best way to start, and it is very
likely not only that you will find your solution, but also that you will
learn a great deal at the same time. Amongst other things they cover
networking (NET-3-HOWTO), sound card configuration
(Sound-HOWTO), the writing of CD (CD-Writing-HOWTO), NIS
and NFS configuration and a whole raft of other things.
However, you need to check the modification dates of HOWTO documents. Some have not been updated recently and it is possible that their contents are no longer accurate... So check the publication date, which is always at the beginning of the document, and watch out especially for old HOWTO relating to hardware configuration: this is an area where Linux evolves very fast. Also remember that the term "old" in the world of free software is even more significant than in IT in general: free software is sometimes considered old when it's been around for fifteen days.
/usr/docSome packages also come with their own documentation, located in a
subdirectory of /usr/doc, which will have the same name as the
package.
Internet information sources are widespread, websites dedicated to Linux and its use or configuration are numerous. But websites are not all there is.
Of the multitude of existing websites, here are some of the most exhaustive:
http://www.linux.org/: one of the very first sites dedicated
to Linux, it contains a whole slew of links to other useful
sites;
http://freshmeat.net/: if you want the latest applications
in the Linux world, here is where you want to go;
http://www.linux-howto.com/: documentation, and
documentation again :)And of course don't forget your favorite search engine. It is often the most practical tool for finding the information you need. ... A few well chosen keywords in a search engine will often produce answers to your specific problem.
To get help on news, you can (should?) first look to see whether your
problem has already been covered (or solved) on Dejanews:
http://www.deja.com/home_ps.shtml. If you don't find anything,
there is a newsgroup entirely dedicated to Linux-Mandrake
(alt.os.linux.mandrake), and you also have access to many
groups in the comp.os.linux.* "hierarchy":
comp.os.linux.setup: questions on Linux
configuration (devices, configuration of applications) and resolution of
miscellaneous problems.
comp.os.linux.misc: all that will not fit in another
group.
Before posting to one of these groups, be certain that you have read the available documentation on your subject. New users who post to these groups without proper research are often made to regret it.