Abstract
openSUSE® comes with various sources of information and documentation, many of which are already integrated into your installed system.
/usr/share/doc
This traditional help directory holds various documentation files and
release notes for your system. It contains also information of
installed packages in the subdirectory packages
.
Find more detailed information in
Section 35.1, “Documentation Directory”.
When working with the shell, you do not need to know the options of the commands by heart. Traditionally, the shell provides integrated help by means of man pages and info pages. Read more in Section 35.2, “Man Pages” and Section 35.3, “Info Pages”.
The help centers of both the KDE desktop (KDE help center) and the GNOME desktop (Help) provide central access to the most important documentation resources on your system in searchable form. These resources include online help for installed applications, man pages, info pages, and the Novell/SUSE manuals delivered with your product.
When installing new software with YaST, the software documentation is installed automatically (in most cases) and usually appears in the help center of your desktop. However, some applications, such as GIMP, may have different online help packages that can be installed separately with YaST and do not integrate into the help centers.
The traditional directory to find documentation on your
installed Linux system is /usr/share/doc
. Usually,
the directory contains information about the packages installed on your
system, plus release notes, manuals, and more.
![]() | Contents Depends on Installed Packages |
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In the Linux world, many manuals and other kinds of documentation are
available in the form of packages, just like software. How much and
which information you find in |
We provide HTML and PDF versions of our books in different
languages. In the manual
subdirectory, find HTML
versions of most of the Novell/SUSE manuals available for your
product. For an overview of all documentation available for your product
refer to the preface of the manuals.
If more than one language is installed,
/usr/share/doc/manual
may contain different
language versions of the manuals. The HTML versions of the Novell/SUSE
manuals are also available in the help center of both desktops. For
information on where to find the PDF and HTML versions of the books on
your installation media, refer to the openSUSE Release Notes. They
are available on your installed system under
/usr/share/doc/release-notes/
or online at your
product-specific Web page at
http://www.novell.com/documentation/.
If the howto
package is installed on your system, /usr/share/doc
also holds the howto
subdirectory, where you find
additional documentation for many tasks relating to the setup and
operation of Linux software.
Under packages
, find the documentation
that is included in the software packages installed on your system. For
every package, a subdirectory
/usr/share/doc/packages/
is created. It often contains README files for the package and sometimes
examples, configuration files, or additional scripts. The following list
introduces typical files to be found under
packagename
/usr/share/doc/packages
. None of these entries are
mandatory and many packages might just include a few of them.
AUTHORS
List of the main developers.
BUGS
Known bugs or malfunctions. Might also contain a link to a Bugzilla Web page where you can search all bugs.
CHANGES
, ChangeLog
Summary of changes from version to version. Usually interesting for developers, because it is very detailed.
COPYING
, LICENSE
Licensing information.
FAQ
Question and answers collected from mailing lists or newsgroups.
INSTALL
How to install this package on your system. As the package is already installed by the time you get to read this file, you can safely ignore the contents of this file.
README
, README.*
General information on the software. For example, for what purpose and how to use it.
TODO
Things that are not implemented yet, but probably will be in the future.
MANIFEST
List of files with a brief summary.
NEWS
Description of what is new in this version.
Man pages are an essential part of any Linux system. They explain the usage of a command and all available options and parameters. Man pages can be accessed with man followed by the name of the command, for example, man ls.
Man pages are displayed directly in the shell. To navigate them, move up and down with Page ↑ and Page ↓. Move between the beginning and the end of a document with Home and End. End this viewing mode by pressing Q. Learn more about the man command itself with man man. Man pages are sorted in categories as shown in Table 35.1, “Man Pages—Categories and Descriptions” (taken from the man page for man itself).
Table 35.1. Man Pages—Categories and Descriptions
Number |
Description |
---|---|
1 |
Executable programs or shell commands |
2 |
System calls (functions provided by the kernel) |
3 |
Library calls (functions within program libraries) |
4 |
Special files (usually found in |
5 |
File formats and conventions ( |
6 |
Games |
7 |
Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), for example, man(7), groff(7) |
8 |
System administration commands (usually only for |
9 |
Kernel routines (nonstandard) |
Each man page consists of several parts labeled NAME, SYNOPSIS, DESCRIPTION, SEE ALSO, LICENSING, and AUTHOR. There may be additional sections available depending on the type of command.
Info pages are another important source of information on your system. Usually, they are more detailed than man pages. To view the info page for a certain command, enter info followed by the name of the command, for example, info ls. You can browse an info page with a viewer directly in the shell and display the different sections, called “nodes.” Use Space to move forward and <— to move backwards. Within a node, you can also browse with Page ↑ and Page ↓ but only Space and <— will take you also to the previous or subsequent node. Press Q to end the viewing mode. Not every man page comes with an info page and vice versa.
Detailed information about lots of different aspects of the openSUSE system can be found in our Wiki at http://en.opensuse.org. You can contribute to each Wiki page and change or add new pages. To do so, first register (if you haven not already) and log in. Click on the link to insert your changes.