74 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
2.5 KiB
Plaintext
<!-- $Id:$ -->
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<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->
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<chapt><heading>Unix Basics</heading>
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<sect>
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<heading>The online manual</heading>
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<p>The most comprehensive documentation on FreeBSD is in
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the form of <em>man pages</em>. Nearly every program
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on the system comes with a short reference manual
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explaining the basic operation and various argument.
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These manuals can be view with the
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<tt><bf>man</bf></tt> command. Use of the
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<tt><bf>man</bf></tt> command is simple:
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<tscreen>
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<tt><bf>man</bf> <it>command</it></tt>
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</tscreen>
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where <it>command</it> is the name of the command
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you wish to find. For example, to learn more about
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<tt><bf>ls</bf></tt> command type:
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<tscreen>
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<tt><bf>man</bf> ls</tt>
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</tscreen>
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<p>The online manual is divided up into numbered
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sections:
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<enum>
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<item>User commands</item>
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<item>System calls and error numbers</item>
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<item>Functions in the C libraries</item>
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<item>Device drivers</item>
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<item>File formats</item>
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<item>Games and other diversions</item>
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<item>Miscellaneous information</item>
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<item>System maintenance and operation commands</item>
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</enum>
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in some cases, the same topic may appear in more than
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one section of the on-line manual. For example, there
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is a <tt><bf>chmod</bf></tt> user command and a
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<tt><bf>chmod()</bf></tt> system call. In this case,
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you can tell the <tt><bf>man</bf></tt> command which
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you want by specifying the section:
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<tscreen>
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<tt><bf>man</bf> 1 chmod</tt>
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</tscreen>
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which will display the manual page for the user command
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<tt><bf>chmod</bf></tt>.
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<p>This is fine if you know the name of the command and
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forgot how to use it, but what if you cannot recall the
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command name? You can use <tt><bf>man</bf></tt> to
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search through the command <em>descriptions</em> by
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using the <tt><bf>-k</bf></tt> switch:
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<tscreen>
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<tt><bf>man</bf> -k mail</tt>
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</tscreen>
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With this command you will be presented with a list of
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commands that have the keyword `mail' in their
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descriptions.
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<sect>
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<heading>GNU Info files</heading>
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<p>FreeBSD includes many applications and utilities
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produced by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). In
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addition to man pages, these programs come with more
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extensive <em>info</em> files which can be viewed with
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the <tt>info</tt> command or, if you installed
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<tt>emacs</tt>, the info mode of <tt>emacs</tt>.
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</sect>
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