Re: [GTALUG] Suggestions: A Book for a Beginner, new to the Linux Shell
On 16-07-17 11:59 PM, ac via talk wrote:
I guess most of us have not used man pages for so many years,
hm... that could be an interesting little survey to put up on a website. The question could be "How do you get information about a new program?". The options could be: built-in help, man, info, all of the above, man and info, or other (ie. internet search). I use man pages all the time. I don't remember the last time I used info. -- Cheers! Kevin. http://www.ve3syb.ca/ |"Nerds make the shiny things that distract Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172 | the mouth-breathers, and that's why we're | powerful!" #include <disclaimer/favourite> | --Chris Hardwick
| From: Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> | On 16-07-17 11:59 PM, ac via talk wrote: | > I guess most of us have not used man pages for so many years, | | hm... that could be an interesting little survey to put up on a website. The | question could be "How do you get information about a new program?". The | options could be: built-in help, man, info, all of the above, man and info, or | other (ie. internet search). | | I use man pages all the time. I don't remember the last time I used info. Man pages are not meant to be tutorial. This is good and bad. It fits in with the UNIX ideal of a tool doing one simple thing and doing it well: the documentation for that tool does not need to be intricate. With something as big and ugly as BASH, it is not really great. I find I do a lot of searching (less(1) is good for that). Perhaps hyphenation should be turned off when formatting man pages OR less should learn how to search across line breaks. I dislike info, probably for cultural reasons. GNU jumped in and made things worse. Especially with the stub manpages that said "go read info". Actually, those stubs are useful reminders but they rub salt in the wound. When I have to read info (most recently to find out what a GCC flag meant) I find pinfo a better interface. Surely there is an even better one using a web browser but I haven't looked. Linux is a bit of a mess. Debian, as I understands it, demands man pages (good!) but Fedora doesn't. Have you hunted for stuff in /usr/share/doc/? LibreOffice seems to have no manpages. Is there anything more useless than LibreOffice "help"? I often end up googling.
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 1:14 PM, Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
On 16-07-17 11:59 PM, ac via talk wrote:
I guess most of us have not used man pages for so many years,
hm... that could be an interesting little survey to put up on a website. The question could be "How do you get information about a new program?". The options could be: built-in help, man, info, all of the above, man and info, or other (ie. internet search).
I use man pages all the time. I don't remember the last time I used info.
I find that man pages are most often terse with nary an example of either positive or negative outcomes. Therefore when I am trying to understand what the whatever is going wrong with something that isn't working man pages are rarely useful. Now to those that know what they are doing they seem to have just enough information so that one can then find which knob to turn or button to push so that the software does what its supposed to. For those of us who aren't computer science majors - - - well man pages are rather less than useful. I find its far more helpful to find someone's tale of how they got xyz working far more useful as then there are some examples of what to do and what to do when things go screwy (which happens all too often). Regards Dee
On Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:14:36 -0400 Kevin Cozens via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
I guess most of us have not used man pages for so many years, hm... that could be an interesting little survey to put up on a website. The question could be "How do you get information about a new program?". The options could be: built-in help, man, info, all of
On 16-07-17 11:59 PM, ac via talk wrote: the above, man and info, or other (ie. internet search). I use man pages all the time. I don't remember the last time I used info.
hmm, I think that I do not that frequently use new programs. I do need a tool, I generally make it myself and before using any "new programs" example: new hardware monitoring etc. I generally read (and study) the documentation and other information that ships with the program (as well as sometimes (most the time) the code as well) before compiling or deciding to use it... - If there are many flags (and new ones/combos were added regularly, like eg nmap) I sometimes make myself a small and easy flag guide, which comes in quite handy for programs not used frequently, I am too anal to use something that I do not understand, unless someone directly tells me to :) maybe i wear more tinfoil than the average person, maybe my life is just very boring, maybe I am just extra lazy or an idiot, not sure... adding: to check more man pages to my bucket list :) Andre
participants (5)
-
ac -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Kevin Cozens -
o1bigtenor -
Scott Allen