[Gllug] Flavours end - Linux begins?

[Stephen Harker]

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outdated so quickly.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documentation can be slightly out of date.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


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