Documentation

Questions

• Where can I find documentation about... ?
• Where can I find FAQs?

Answers

• Where can I find documentation about... ?

  • The System
    For help with normal system utilities (like ls, rm, etc.), you should start with the manpages. The man command displays manpages. Here is an example of how to get more information about using man:

    man man
    

    If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, you may want to try man -k keyword, where keyword is a word that might be used to describe the command you are looking for. This will give you a list of manpages that may be relevant.

    Sun provides a documentation viewer called answerbook. If you are on a Sun system and you are using X windows, you can just type answerbook at the prompt.

  • Sybase
    The Sybase online documentation comes with two viewing tools, answerbase and sybooks. Both of these programs are installed on the machines where the Sybase server is installed. Simply run them from the command line.

  • Other Software
    Most software has a manpage giving at least a general overview of usage. For larger pieces of software, there may be more documentation in /usr/doc or /usr/local/doc.

    GNU software, such as emacs, gcc, gdb, etc., is documented in GNU Info pages. To read info pages, start emacs, type C-h i, and follow the directions at the top of the screen.

• Where can I find FAQs?

  There is a repository of FAQs from various newsgroups available for anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu. Most of these FAQs are also periodically posted to various newsgroups. Another good place to look for FAQs is in the *.answers newsgroups, like news.answers, sci.answers, comp.answers, etc.