96 lines
3.5 KiB
Text
96 lines
3.5 KiB
Text
<!-- $Id: basics.sgml,v 1.10 1997-08-12 09:17:32 asami Exp $ -->
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<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->
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<chapt><heading>Unix Basics<label id="basics"></heading>
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<sect>
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<heading>The Online Manual<label id="basics:man"></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 arguments.
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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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<bf>man</bf> <it>command</it>
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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 learn about. 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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% <bf>man ls</bf>
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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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one you want by specifying the section:
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<tscreen>
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% <bf>man 1 chmod</bf>
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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>. References to a particular
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section of the on-line manual are traditionally placed
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in parenthesis in written documentation, so
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<tt><bf>chmod(1)</bf></tt> refers to the <tt><bf>chmod
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</bf></tt> user command and <tt><bf>chmod(2)</bf></tt>
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refers to the system call.
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<p>This is fine if you know the name of the command and
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simply wish to know 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 for keywords in 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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% <bf>man -k mail</bf>
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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. This is actually functionally equivalent to
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using the <tt><bf>apropos</bf></tt> command.
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<p>So, you are looking at all those fancy commands in <tt>
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/usr/bin</tt> but do not even have the faintest idea
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what most of them actually do? Simply do a
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<tscreen>
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% <bf>cd /usr/bin; man -f *</bf>
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</tscreen>
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or
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<tscreen>
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% <bf>cd /usr/bin; whatis *</bf>
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</tscreen>
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which does the same thing.
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<sect>
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<heading>GNU Info Files<label id="basics:info"></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 hypertext documents called <em>info</em>
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files which can be viewed with the <tt>info</tt>
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command or, if you installed <tt>emacs</tt>, the info
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mode of <tt>emacs</tt>.
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To use the <tt>info(1)</tt> command, simply type:
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<tscreen>% <bf>info</bf></tscreen> For a brief
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introduction, type <tt><bf>h</bf></tt>. For a quick
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command reference, type <tt><bf>?</bf></tt>.
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