Questions tagged [documentation]

Manuals or other information for system users detailing software features and functionality.

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Standard utilities notation for SYNOPSIS sections

I want to construct a program utility synopsis for optional comma separated keywords. utility [KEYWORD[,KEYWORD]...] I worder where I should put the repeating pattern .... I want to allow the ...
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Where can I find the documentation for the Linux NPU API?

For example the Samsung Galaxy S10 has an Exynos 9820 CPU with integrated NPU. We all know Android is based on Linux. So where can I find the Linux API documentation about how to interact with the NPU?...
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Character Classes in GNU grep manual

Trying to understand why does the grep manual state the character classes with one square bracket. https://www.gnu.org/software/grep/manual/html_node/Character-Classes-and-Bracket-Expressions.html For ...
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2 answers
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Multi-line documentation for bash inspired by lisp

I want to print some usage information for some functions. I customarily use echo or printf for each line. echo "-V, --version" echo " Display the version number and copyrights ...
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1 answer
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(Linux Mint) Does selecting "Encrypt Home Folder" after you chose Full Disk Encryption only encrypt the home folder?

I am not new to Linux but I am new to Linux Mint since I switched from Ubuntu due to reasons out of scope of this question (snapd, update borked my computer) I selected for FDE (Full Disk Encryption) ...
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How do I preview a unix document file? [duplicate]

I want to preview these unix docs : https://github.com/axboe/liburing/tree/master/man , what should I do?
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systemd - does the `DynamicUser` option work with user units and if so, how?

For systemd's system units (the units you operate with systemctl --system (default)), it's possible to specify DynamicUser=yes to make systemd dynamically allocate a user and group for the service to ...
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Where to find purpose of each system default Groups and Users in Linux

when I cat /etc/group and cat /etc/passwd I get a list in which I find many I don't know. I know only group sudo group. But there is are many which I don't knows such as sys, adm .... I like to learn ...
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Debian or other convention for installing info files in multiple languages

I am working on the installation for Maxima, a computer algebra system. The reference manual is written as a collection of Texinfo files. The primary documentation is English, but there are several ...
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1 answer
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What is the official 'man' location in the web?

I had the following experience: ps command: how to know all the headers with their respective descriptions? The answer is totally valid, the man available by the OS itself is not updated, so the web ...
1 vote
1 answer
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How to get help on vim's `complete` variable, not vim's `complete' function?

In vim, there is both a function and a variable called complete. If you do help complete, you get the function's help. How do you get the help for the variable?
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Where are the kernel arguments documented?

I want to read more about the Linux Kernel argument for memtest. Where can I find out more information about the arguments my kernel accepts?
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List of all file command outputs?

The file -b <path> command seems useful for scripting (filtering file types, not necessarily by extension). But for that you have to know the actual string output for your target filetype(s) If ...
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1 answer
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How to change the pager for info command

On GNU/Linux is it possible to change the default pager for info command? I would like to use less as the pager (similar to man pages). I have customized less to use colors to make navigation of man ...
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Linux - Where to place manuals and docs for user binaries?

For applications installed via system package manager, binaries, man pages, and docs go in /usr/bin/, /usr/share/man/man<n>/, and /usr/share/doc/<app-name>/ respectively. For example: ...
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Why through man page does not show the complete list of options and through -help yes?

I understood that man <command> is the manual page for any command. For man groupdel is possible see only two options: -h --help -R --root CHRROT_DIR Until here at a first glance one can assume ...
3 votes
1 answer
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Installing man pages for section 9 (kernel routines)

I use kernel.org docs to read about kernel functions. Now I am trying to make possible reading manuals for kernel-mode functions, such as printk with man 9 printk. The section 9 is used for this ...
2 votes
1 answer
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Is there any good documentation on sysfs? [closed]

I'm looking for good documentation for sysfs; the man page is incomplete and even has one sentence that just stops half way through. I've found the Linux kernel documentation but that's a little bit ...
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1 answer
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Offline Documentation of kernel.org

i wanted to find a website to download linux kernel documents offline in eother pdf or html or any kind but i dont know where to find and where to download any help would be appreciated the link i ...
3 votes
1 answer
226 views

How to get apropos to show only executable programs/shell commands?

Most of the times when I use apropos I don't care about system calls, library calls etc — I'm just trying to find a command I forgot the name of. Is there a way to trim down the output of apropos to ...
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How to find descriptions for exit codes in Linux? [duplicate]

I'm looking for textual explanation of Linux exit codes (like 124 for timeout, 130 for SIGINT received, etc). I thought errno from moreutils does this but it seems it is for looking for error numbers? ...
2 votes
1 answer
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Where to get offline documentation/descriptions of individual sysctl kernel tunable parameters?

The NOTES section of $ man 5 sysctl.conf states: The description of individual parameters can be found in the kernel documentation. But is there a way for me to find this kernel documentation offline? ...
1 vote
1 answer
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What are the expansions of TUN and TAP acronyms?

Many VPN software use the TUN or TAP kernel driver to create a virtual network interface (mainly for Linux and FreeBSD systems). I know how they work and the differences, this is purely a ...
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Where to Find Linux Kernel Driver Documentation by Filename

Simple, top level question (which, maddeningly has eluded my sorry level of Google-fu): Poking around in my (admittedly out of date) machine, I find the following file: /lib/modules/4.9.0-0.bpo.14-...
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Error installing VirtualBox on Kali Linux following the Kali doc

https://stackexchange.com/users/9328287/telcom I found a very useful and meaningful answer of yours about this error: E: The repository 'http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian n/a ...
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How and where to find out details on which directories and files a package effects?

In the context of adding capabilities to BaseX,I can see some information about a package: nicholas@mordor:~$ nicholas@mordor:~$ apt show basex Package: basex Version: 9.0.1+ds-1 Priority: optional ...
2 votes
2 answers
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What is the behaviour of a file-backed memory map when reading from or writing to an address larger than the length of the file?

I'm trying to figure out whether it would be undefined behaviour to open a memory map to a file with a very large length. My use-case is that I want to be able to see new data when the file is ...
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2 answers
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What is the intention of undocumented option "netserver -D"?

The netserver binary is often used for network performance profiling in conjunction with iperf3. In many contexts including other Stack Exchange questions, the method for launching netserver is shown ...
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Cheatsheat of all standard utilities [closed]

On a fresh installation pressing double tab prints Display all X possibilities? (y or n). X seems to always be above 1000, on my Arch it's 3003. So the do one thing and do it well philosophy. But how ...
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3 votes
1 answer
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Are some apt long options undocumented?

I cannot find documentation on some long, double-dash options of apt, upon which I stumbled with Bash's tab-completion. $ apt install --<TAB><TAB> --allow-change-held-packages --fix-...
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1 vote
1 answer
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Documentation for the meaning of entries in /proc/meminfo and /proc/vmstat

Where can I find documentation explaining the meaning of entries in /proc/meminfo and /proc/vmstat files? I looked up on the web and the man page of proc but could not find much. Many entries are self ...
-1 votes
1 answer
647 views

wpa_cli action script example

I have been googling since morning about any wpa_cli actionscript example and the commands but can't any decent one. can someone help me with some info or link please? Thanks
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1 answer
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Installing Read/Write locks documentation on Debian

I'm trying to write a program that uses read/write locks and would like to install the man pages for this type of lock. I already have installed the packages manpages-dev man-db glibc-doc Could you ...
62 votes
4 answers
10k views

Where is the `--` (double dash) argument documented?

There are some utilities that accept a -- (double dash) as the signal for "end of options", required when a file name starts with a dash: $ echo "Hello World!" >-file $ cat -- -file Hello World! ...
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2 votes
1 answer
347 views

virsh "live" vs "current" domain

From the virsh manpage, under attach-interface: If --live is specified, affect a running domain.  If --config is specified, affect the next startup of a persistent domain.  If --current is ...
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2 votes
2 answers
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How does the tftpd-hpa --verbosity option work?

I'm trying to set up a TFTP server using tftp-hpa, and according to the manpage I can use the --verbosity option to get more output. Unfortunately I can't find anything that explains what I should ...
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8 votes
1 answer
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Where is awklib?

I am working my way through GAWK: Effective AWK Programming: A User’s Guide for GNU Awk, Edition 5.0; March, 2019. I installed gawk using the following commands: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get ...
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How to read library documentation downloaded as a package (package-doc)

I am coding Qt GUI application for cryptography and want to use OpenSSL library calls for my application logic. Thats why i downloaded libssl-dev and libssl-doc packages via Synaptic package manager (...
4 votes
1 answer
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Where is the documentation for the IP variable in initramfs.conf?

Multiple sources, including this one, mention using the IP variable in initramfs.conf to set a static IP address in the pre-boot environment, and I have used this successfully in the past. However, ...
0 votes
1 answer
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missing documentation icinga2 installation on gentoo

I need install mariadb, apache2, php, icinga2 and icingaweb2 on gentoo. According to the documentation, I managed to install mariadb, apache2, (probably) php and icinga2 At the moment (according to ...
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What are the conventional meanings for symbols used to show commands' syntax?

I am looking for some sort of "syntax key" for command line tools on GNU/Linux, something like this document that Microsoft has: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-...
3 votes
1 answer
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Understanding fetching mutiple URLs and documents using curl

It's not clear to me how to fetch multiple documents using curl mainly because I do not fully understand the explanation in the curl documentation The curl documentation says: -o, --output <file&...
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4 votes
1 answer
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Configure static values in /etc/dhcpcd.conf

What are the valid values (and what are they used for) for the static option in /etc/dhcpcd.conf file? I'm configuring a network interface of a Raspberry (running raspbian stretch) by editing the /...
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5 votes
2 answers
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What does grep -w do?

In here grep is used with the option -w. I did man grep and grep --help to try to find what the aforementioned option does. Neither output says anything about a -w option. What does that option do? ...
11 votes
2 answers
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What packages the man pages for GCC on Debian 10 Buster / Testing?

I just installed build-essential, which installed gcc-8 but the man pages seem to be unavailable. $ man gcc No manual entry for gcc See 'man 7 undocumented' for help when manual pages are not ...
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Examples of common programs

Is there a some man-like program (or site/book) that can show me simple examples of common tools usage? So i can type in terminal show-example grep and it will output ... For matching multiple ...
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2 answers
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Using Heredoc in a Makefile. Is it Possible?

I'm using Makefile such that the default step is to print out a help document for the other options. It would be great if I could add an EOF section instead of multiple echos. Is it possible to use ...
1 vote
1 answer
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What's the default value of the admin_reserve_kbytes kernel parameter?

Many of the kernel parameters have default values assigned. But some of them aren't really clear. I'm reading the proc manual and in the case of admin_reserve_kbytes we can read the following: The ...
3 votes
5 answers
4k views

Is grep documentation about ignoring case wrong, since it doesn't ignore case in filenames?

The man page for grep reads -i, --ignore-case Ignore case distinctions in both the PATTERN and the input files.  (-i is specified by POSIX.) However, if I change case on a filename, it won't ...
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Getting help on Bash's reserved words

Is there a way to get the information in this link (it's an index with all (?) the keywords) a and within the first level links in the command line with something like man or help?
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