One of the powerful feature of Linux Shell is the help page for commands. all commands comes with the manual page so that it can be easily understood by user.For accessing help or syntax details about any command in Linux , simply get into the terminal and type
# man command-name
This will display the information like name , syntax , description , example , author of the particular command. User can also use some options like “-f” for short description and “-k” for displaying commands based on the keyword.
Regular Usgae
1. Displaying Manual or Help Page
#man find
Manual Page for Find Command
2. Getting Short Description
#man -f ifconfig
Short Description of ifconfig
3.Getting List of commands using Keyword
If you want to know about the commands for network operations , you do not know all the Linux networking commands , In this situaltion “man -k” option will help you. Type the keyword “network” with option “-k” in man command , it will display all the commands matching the keyword like network.
#man -k “network”
List of Network Commands
4. Converting Manual Page into Portable Format [ Text , PDF , PS ]
The default format of the man pages are in troff [ Text Formatting System]. We can convert troff format to text pdf or ps format using man with following options
i) For Text File conversion
# man ls | col -b > lstext.txt
ii) For PDF or PS conversion
#man -t ls > lsps.ps
#man -t ls | ps2pdf – > lstext.pdf
