[HOW-TO]Get yourself some help in Linux

Ympker

Hello everyone,
This is a very short "tutorial" and probably more like some kind of heads up.
Anyway as I am currently enrolled in a Basic Ubuntu Server course I stumbled upon this feature and found it quite helpful, especially for beginners

So here goes: 2 ways to help yourself to get around in linux

1) Use the -help and --help command
by adding -help and --help after some command or program linux will display the parameters you can use it with. This is quite helpful when you already know what the command/program does and you have already used it before however don't know the parameters all at once just yet.

Examples:

cat -help

mkdir --help

2) If you are looking to get a bit more information like "What does that command/program do? How do I use it?" the man command can be quite helpful! Naturally Linux comes with a manual for its programs and commands. By using the man command it will display a description of the defined command/program and show you basic examples of how it may be used. This is very interesting if you either have no clue what a program/command on your vps does or you want to learn about its usage.

Examples:

man cat

man mkdir

I can already see the haters coming and saying "what a waste!". That's no tutorial!
Well yeah, probably it really is more like a headsup but personally I found this information quite useful and consider it a "good to know feature"
That being said I am happy to share my knowledge with whoever is interested in it.

jeromeza

You'd be better off explaining how to search man for keywords to your problem e.g. you need to find a man page for firewall config but you're not sure where to look.

You can then use man -k firewall and find all the manual's relating to the firewall.

Ympker

@jeromeza said:
You'd be better off explaining how to search man for keywords to your problem e.g. you need to find a man page for firewall config but you're not sure where to look.

You can then use man -k firewall and find all the manual's relating to the firewall.

Didn't know that until now Thanks!

raindog308

Ympker said: the man command can be quite helpful!

That made me laugh. Linux man pages are godawful crap and half of them are stubs to demented GNU info.

The only Unix/Unix-like operating systems with decent documentation are *BSD and commercial Unixes.

alexnjh

http://bfy.tw/tch <- best resource true story.

jeromeza

@raindog308 - BSD is anal about documentation. It's a really good thing though as the documentation is miles ahead Linux. They do take it to extremes though, when they ban people from their forums for bad grammar (and i'm not talking Twitter slang here, but things like omitting an apostrophe.)

tommy

The best linux documentation/how to, archlinux wiki.

raindog308

jeromeza said: BSD is anal about documentation. It's a really good thing though as the documentation is miles ahead Linux.

I agree. At least for OpenBSD, documentation errors or missing info on man pages is considered a serious bug.

jeromeza said: They do take it to extremes though, when they ban people from their forums for bad grammar (and i'm not talking Twitter slang here, but things like omitting an apostrophe.)

You must be referring to this ridiculous post, which I guess has been taken down:

https://web.archive.org/web/20141020092605/http://forums.freebsd.org/threads/posting-and-editing-in-the-freebsd-forums-1-proper-formatting.8816/

Absolutely insane, and the reason why I don't participate in the FreeBSD forums.

Rules include how many spaces after a period, not using 'config' instead of 'configuration', and other stupidity. Little boys trying to act adult.

boxelder

For Man pages I skim the optional flags at the beginning and then go to the end to see example syntax. If I'm still stumped then I hit Google (which happens 99% of the time).