A Definitive Guide to Linux Man Pages

Do you want to know where to find the answer to just about any Linux question you may ever have? Well…

All the answers are in the built-in man pages on a Linux system!

That’s probably not what you wanted to hear. 🙁

When you’re trying to figure something out or have a Linux question it can be annoying to get a reply like this:

“Just read the man page!”

It’s actually good advice, but it has one fatal flaw: It assumes you know how to read a man page. Scratch that. It assumes you know how to understand and use what you read in a man page.

When you first start looking at man pages they might appear to contain a bunch of random punctuation. You might wonder…

  • Why are some things enclosed in brackets and others aren’t?
  • Why are there three little periods after some things?
  • Why do some options have one dash and others have two?

To get the answers to all those questions and more, watch the video on this page.  It will have you reading man pages like an old pro. You’ll finally understand all those man page hieroglyphics and you’ll never feel lost again. 😉

You’ll learn…

  • How to search through man pages to find the help (or command) you’re looking for.
  • How to decipher all the man page conventions such as underlined words, options enclosed in brackets, and more.
  • What to do when man doesn’t work. (IE, the “other” man command.)
  • How to mix and match multiple options (and option types) to make the command do exactly what you want.
  • And more…

If you’ve ever seen anything in a man page that you didn’t understand, this will definitely help you out.

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