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<!-- $Id: basics.sgml,v 1.1.1.1.4.4 1996-06-19 20:27:25 jkh Exp $ -->
<!-- The FreeBSD Documentation Project -->
<chapt><heading>Unix Basics<label id="basics"></heading>
<sect>
<heading>The online manual<label id="basics:man"></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 arguments.
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>
<bf>man</bf> <it>command</it>
</tscreen>
where <it>command</it> is the name of the command
you wish to learn about. For example, to learn more about
<tt><bf>ls</bf></tt> command type:
<tscreen>
% <bf>man ls</bf>
</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
one you want by specifying the section:
<tscreen>
% <bf>man 1 chmod</bf>
</tscreen>
which will display the manual page for the user command
<tt><bf>chmod</bf></tt>. References to a particular
section of the on-line manual are traditionally placed
in parenthesis in written documentation, so
<tt><bf>chmod(1)</bf></tt> refers to the <tt><bf>chmod
</bf></tt> user command and <tt><bf>chmod(2)</bf></tt>
refers to the system call.
<p>This is fine if you know the name of the command and
simply wish to know how to use it, but what if you cannot recall the
command name? You can use <tt><bf>man</bf></tt> to
search for keywords in the command <em>descriptions</em> by
using the <tt><bf>-k</bf></tt> switch:
<tscreen>
% <bf>man -k mail</bf>
</tscreen>
With this command you will be presented with a list of
commands that have the keyword `mail' in their
descriptions. This is actually functionally equivalent to
using the <tt><bf>apropos</bf></tt> command.
<p>So, you are looking at all those fancy commands in <tt>
/usr/bin</tt> but do not even have the faintest idea
what most of them actually do? Simply do a
<tscreen>
% <bf>cd /usr/bin; man -f *</bf>
</tscreen>
or
<tscreen>
% <bf>cd /usr/bin; whatis *</bf>
</tscreen>
which does the same thing.
<sect>
<heading>GNU Info files<label id="basics:info"></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 hypertext documents called <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>.
To use the <tt>info(1)</tt> command, simply type:
<tscreen>% <bf>info</bf></tscreen> For a brief
introduction, type <tt><bf>h</bf></tt>. For a quick
command reference, type <tt><bf>?</bf></tt>.
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