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<!-- $Id: basics.sgml,v 1.1.1.1 1995-04-28 16:19:59 jfieber Exp $ -->
<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->
<chapt><heading>Unix Basics</heading>
<sect>
<heading>The online manual</heading>
<p>The most comprehensive documentation on FreeBSD is in
the form of <em>man pages</em>. Nearly every program
on the system comes with a short reference manual
explaining the basic operation and various argument.
These manuals can be view with the
<tt><bf>man</bf></tt> command. Use of the
<tt><bf>man</bf></tt> command is simple:
<tscreen>
<tt><bf>man</bf> <it>command</it></tt>
</tscreen>
where <it>command</it> is the name of the command
you wish to find. For example, to learn more about
<tt><bf>ls</bf></tt> command type:
<tscreen>
<tt><bf>man</bf> ls</tt>
</tscreen>
<p>The online manual is divided up into numbered
sections:
<enum>
<item>User commands</item>
<item>System calls and error numbers</item>
<item>Functions in the C libraries</item>
<item>Device drivers</item>
<item>File formats</item>
<item>Games and other diversions</item>
<item>Miscellaneous information</item>
<item>System maintenance and operation commands</item>
</enum>
in some cases, the same topic may appear in more than
one section of the on-line manual. For example, there
is a <tt><bf>chmod</bf></tt> user command and a
<tt><bf>chmod()</bf></tt> system call. In this case,
you can tell the <tt><bf>man</bf></tt> command which
you want by specifying the section:
<tscreen>
<tt><bf>man</bf> 1 chmod</tt>
</tscreen>
which will display the manual page for the user command
<tt><bf>chmod</bf></tt>.
<p>This is fine if you know the name of the command and
forgot how to use it, but what if you cannot recall the
command name? You can use <tt><bf>man</bf></tt> to
search through the command <em>descriptions</em> by
using the <tt><bf>-k</bf></tt> switch:
<tscreen>
<tt><bf>man</bf> -k mail</tt>
</tscreen>
With this command you will be presented with a list of
commands that have the keyword `mail' in their
descriptions.
<sect>
<heading>GNU Info files</heading>
<p>FreeBSD includes many applications and utilities
produced by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). In
addition to man pages, these programs come with more
extensive <em>info</em> files which can be viewed with
the <tt>info</tt> command or, if you installed
<tt>emacs</tt>, the info mode of <tt>emacs</tt>.
</sect>
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