Lec. 7 Finding Files

Comprehensive on-line help is available for all LINUX commands. The information is stored in files called reference manual pages and these can be viewed using the man command. To get a description of any command, type
man command
So to view the manual pages on, for example, the ls command you would type
man ls
The pages would then be displayed via the more command, so you can use the Spacebar to advance the manual page and the q key to quit the listing. It is well worth looking at the manual pages on the more command simply to help you view the manual pages! In addition you can get a full description of the man help system by typing
man man
Linux has a rich variety of commands for doing many things. The manual pages give you full information on each command and, usefully, the last few lines of each entry give cross references to other related commands.
If you are having trouble locating information on a particular topic you can type
man -k topic | more
and this will list possible sources. To get a list of Linux commands type
man -s1 intro
Also most Linux commands have a parameter for obtaining information on usage that can be as good as the man pages. It is usually –h , --h or –help . For example:
grep --help