Ubuntu Documentation for Advanced Users?

[C de-Avillez]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 10:24 AM, Ron Scott-Adams <ron at tohuw.net> wrote:

> manpages.
>
> There is no better replacement for reading the manpages of a product and
> seeking to understand them. To start, it is helpful to understand how
> manpages are organized:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page#Manual_sections
>
> For a nice detailed walkthrough of manpages and using them effectively,
> see:
> http://tips.dataexpedition.com/1man.html
>
> A brief quote from the above is worthwhile:
> "Now that you know what manual pages are, there is the all important
> matter of understanding how to read them.  This can be a tricky task and
> many people give up in frustration.  The most important thing to remember
> about manual pages isdon't give up.  Even if you don't understand most of
> what is being said, at least skim through the whole thing."
>
> To view a specific manpage section, see the below example (some facilities
> have multiple manpage sections):
> man -S 2 syslog
>
> Of course, this naturally leads to question: what manpages? There are
> thousands of them available on your system, after all.
>
> Here are a few I suggest to start with, as they cover key aspects of your
> system and reference deeper manpages as well:
>
> man man (pay special attention to how to search for manpages - this saves
> you time)
> man -a intro (self explanatory - after you press q to quit one section,
> you’ll be prompted for the next)
> man upstart (actually a link to init(8) - understand how processes happen
> on your system)
> man dmesg (a friend for troubleshooting)
> man cron (“scheduled tasks”)
> man grub (the boot manager you are likely using)
> man strace (trace system calls - see what a process is asking the system
> to do)
> man interfaces (this is a good example of a very helpful manpage on a
> configuration file)
>
>
There is also 'apropos' to search the man pages (and yes, 'man apropos'
will tell you how to use it). It is a simple tool, but helps.

Finally, there are the Official Ubuntu Books (google for it). The authors
know what they are talking about.

Cheers,

..C..
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