[Gllug] Flavours end - Linux begins?

[Dermot Moynihan]

At 11:12 18/11/02, you wrote:
>Dermot Moynihan wrote:
>>At 08:56 18/11/02, you wrote:
>>
>>>On Mon 18 Nov, Dermot Moynihan wrote:
>>> >
>>> > At 20:39 17/11/02, you wrote:
>>> > >On Sun 17 Nov, Dermot Moynihan wrote:
>>>
>>> > >
>>> > >    The problem with books, and any other documentation, is that 
>>> they become
>>> > >outdated so quickly. It took me some time to discover just how much
>>> > >documentation comes with the individual packages, and where to find 
>>> it on
>>> > >disc.
>>> > >Other documentation may be available with the distribution, but not
>>> > >installed by default
>>> >
>>> > well, I've been rooting around and found little. Some of the stuff with
>>> > SUSE is practically illegible, specifically four 'free' books. Some 
>>> of them
>>> > are actually written in a very poor font with white print on a black
>>> > background. Weird. And useless. If it wasn't for all the good things 
>>> I keep
>>> > hearing about SUSE (Linux format just gave it 9 out of 10) and, not
>>> > forgetting the £60 I spent on it, I'd head for something else. I'm coming
>>> > to the conclusion if you know how to use it it's probably, naw - 
>>> possibly,
>>> > great. But for a beginner, jeez.
>>> >
>>> > >. For very good reasons
>>> >
>>> > to give us a hard time :)
>>> >
>>> > >the default location of files,
>>> > >and their internal structures, can change between versions, so even that
>>> > >documentation can be slightly out of date. I have set up two 
>>> monitors side
>>> > >by side so that I can read the documentation from one computer while 
>>> I work
>>> > >on another.
>>> >
>>> > David Bowie style :)
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > thanks for your time, Chris.
>>> > Dermot
>>>
>>>    I am trying to learn the Debian distribution, and there are mainly
>>>symbolic links in /usr/doc, with the majority of the documentation in
>>>/usr/share/doc as either uncompressed or gzipped, plain text or html, files.
>>>I use "ls" or "ls -l" to list each directory layer in turn to make sure that
>>>I do not miss anything, and pipe the output into either more or less so that
>>>they do not just fly past the screen:
>>>
>>>ls -l /usr/share/doc | less
>>>
>>>    Most items are listed under the package names, and are themselves
>>>directories, but do not miss the Linux Documentation Project howto and
>>>mini.howto series. Plain text files can be viewed using less, or zless for
>>>gzipped files. There are also the "man" pages, if you do not know the name
>>>of a relevant man page, type
>>>
>>>apropos <string>
>>>
>>>to get a list of man pages whose header contains <string>, each will be
>>>listed as <name><#> which is then accessed using
>>>
>>>man # <name>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>Chris Bell
>>
>>Thanks Chris, I've been using man a bit and I've printed out some of the 
>>HOWTOs.
>>Can I ask probably a very beginner question:
>>How can I get it to give me a printout of  e.g.
>>man ls
>>Reading off my cheap monitor is a pain. I need to relax while I read it.
>
>Type "man man" to see all the options for man itself :-)
>
>Use:
>
># man -t command
>
>to format the man page for "command" ready for a printer. You then pipe it 
>to the lpr command that prints it out.
>So...
>
># man -t ls | lpr
>
>should do the trick.
>
>Steve

Thanks Steve. Should save me bothering ye guys with mundane seeming questions.
By the way, thanks for your earlier advice on how to save my Kmail set up 
and messages. Haven't got around to it yet (hence the late thanks) as I'm 
trying to figure out what exactly I'm doing before I do it. Cld take a 
while. But I'll get there.
Dermot


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