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I have installed a minimal Debian 9 through CD image. I configured Apt to not install recommended packages and now the system don't have any man page.
man apt-get, man mkdir, or man ping doesn't show any man page; instead, I get
bash: man: command not found
bash: man: command not found
means that you need to install the man-db package.
Manpages are installed by default in most cases, because Debian policy strongly encourages them to be shipped in the same package as the commands themselves:
Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual page included in the same package.
man-db (and hence man) installed by default?
apt to ignore “Recommends”. That’s not the default installation. man-db is “Priority: standard” and installed in the default installation, but not in the minimal one.
Jan 31, 2019 at 5:21
The apt package which contain apt-get, also contains the manpage for apt-get (it even contains it in 7 languages), so if you have apt-get installed, you really should have the manpage. If you don't you've messed up your system in a way beyond what any packaging system can help you with.
Similar can be said for mkdir in the coreutils package, and for ping in iputils-ping.
But configuring APT to not install recommends (which I also always do, and believe to be a good thing), will mean that you don't get manpages of any program where the Debian developer making the package has chosen not to include it in the package, but in a package that is only a recommandation. I guess there's a lot of options, but some number of programs have manpages in the manpages package.
manpages package does document some commands, but only a small number. Other packages which don’t include manpages tend to do so for licensing reasons (e.g. gcc).
Apr 1, 2018 at 12:02
FWIW if you try and install Debian under Windows using WSL, then you do not get the man pages as default (I imagine this may also be a minimal installation). This is easily remedied using the method that Stephen Kitt suggests in a previous answer, but for the avoidance of doubt the command is:
sudo apt-get install man-db
If you install the build-essential packages (e.g. to install a C compiler), then you MAY need to also use:
sudo apt-get install manpages-dev
man apt-getlinux.die.net/man/8/apt-get or manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man8/apt.8.html ...man mkdir(1) man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/mkdir.1.html , etc. etc.manpages.debian.org.