Questions tagged [documentation]
Manuals or other information for system users detailing software features and functionality.
200
questions
0
votes
3answers
46 views
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
...
1
vote
2answers
49 views
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 ...
0
votes
2answers
30 views
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 ...
0
votes
2answers
44 views
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 ...
3
votes
1answer
37 views
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-...
0
votes
1answer
113 views
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
1answer
55 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
1
vote
1answer
28 views
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 ...
50
votes
4answers
6k 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!
...
1
vote
1answer
103 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
587 views
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 ...
8
votes
1answer
319 views
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 ...
0
votes
1answer
28 views
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 (...
1
vote
1answer
836 views
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
1answer
153 views
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 ...
1
vote
3answers
196 views
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-...
1
vote
1answer
110 views
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&...
3
votes
0answers
1k views
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 /...
1
vote
2answers
4k views
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? ...
4
votes
2answers
2k views
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 ...
0
votes
0answers
42 views
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 ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
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
1answer
187 views
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 ...
4
votes
5answers
3k 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 ...
1
vote
1answer
91 views
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?
0
votes
1answer
146 views
Accessing function documentation
Is there a way to access docstrings in Bash? How does one include a docstring in a function's definition in Bash?
More specifically how do I add and access docstrings to the following function?
...
1
vote
0answers
58 views
Where to look for data type definitions?
Is there any reference material like man pages that informs on C datatypes? I thought this would give me something, but not:
$ man size_t
No manual entry for size_t
$ man -k size_t
size_t: nothing ...
2
votes
0answers
302 views
Where to find more infos about Xwayland command line options?
My gnome-session starts a Xwayland instance which I can find
$> pgrep -a Xwayland
995 /usr/bin/Xwayland :0 -rootless -terminate -accessx -core -listen 4 -listen 5 -displayfd 6
which shows that ...
1
vote
1answer
199 views
Auto Refresh qpdfview
I am writing documents in latex that I compile to produce a pdf file opened with qpdfview (with the --unique option).
Once compiled after a modification on the tex .document, I would like qpdfview to ...
0
votes
1answer
18 views
Why does the help for some applications open in Seamonkey composer?
I am running Linux in the form of openSuse Leap 15.0 with KDE Plasma 5.12.6 and have applied patches regularly. If I run some applications, for example Gimp (2.8.22), and ask for help, it starts ...
8
votes
3answers
1k views
Where is the official documentation (Debian package iproute-doc)?
Manpage of ss says:
FILTER := [ state TCP-STATE ] [ EXPRESSION ]
Please take a look at the official documentation (Debian package iproute-doc) for details regarding filters.
What does that mean? I ...
11
votes
3answers
2k views
Is there any documentation for udev builtins?
The man page for udev mentions in several places that certain rules options can be used to invoke 'builtin' commands, which are apparently built in to the udev program itself. However, I haven't been ...
1
vote
2answers
4k views
What exactly does `ps -p PID` do that `ps -q PID` does not?
According to man ps:
-p pidlist
Select by PID. This selects the processes whose process ID
numbers appear in pidlist. Identical to p and --pid.
-q pidlist
...
1
vote
0answers
41 views
The standard mechanism to switch GPUs isn't undocumented, is it?
My laptop is a normal, uninteresting machine with two standard, unmultiplexed GPUs and an ordinary Debian stretch installation. The secondary GPU (a Radeon) is usually powered down but I can activate ...
1
vote
1answer
39 views
How can I view a cheatsheet/summary of a syntax construct of zsh in zsh itself? [closed]
I want something like the doc function in Clojure; I want to type cheat for and be shown some example usages of for in zsh. I don't mind installing an app for this, and I hope something like this has ...
16
votes
2answers
3k views
What does C@t{++} mean in the gdb man page?
I was reading the manpage for gdb and I came across the line:
You can use GDB to debug programs written in C, C@t{++}, Fortran and Modula-2.
The C@t{++} looks like a regex but I can't seem to decode ...
1
vote
1answer
140 views
'find' -perm example in doc
I was reading the official documentation of find online here. And I came across the following part (and I'm bolding the bolded part):
‘-perm -444 -perm /222 ! -perm /111’
Match files that are ...
0
votes
3answers
485 views
Reading Linux kernel documentation in terminal
Is there a way to read Linux Kernel documentation offline in the terminal? For exmple, I am reading this document online: https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/cgroup-v1/cgroups.txt
If I use Linux ...
1
vote
1answer
52 views
How to know if man pages are written in my language?
I know my language hindi is in my locale. I have tried to access the hindi man page using this command-
man -Lhi man
But it returns english man pages. So I want to find out how to know if man pages ...
2
votes
1answer
2k views
Some documentation for the “ext4-rsv-conver” process?
$ pgrep -a -f ext4-rsv-conver
153 ext4-rsv-conver
161 ext4-rsv-conver
7451 ext4-rsv-conver
$ dpkg -S ext4-rsv-conver
dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern *ext4-rsv-conver*
Also I can't find ...
0
votes
1answer
124 views
Documentation about tmux TPM plugins
I'm wanting to build a TPM based plugin but the example provided is extremely minimal, doesn't explain how to do things (like creating commmands that can be used in the tmux status bar, or how to have ...
1
vote
1answer
711 views
Where is the “group-separator” option listed in the grep documentation?
My flavor of grep supports --group-separator and --no-group-separator but I only discovered this by googling how to solve a problem:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2168065/how-do-i-get-rid-of-...
0
votes
1answer
229 views
Finding a man page with a standard C or POSIX type? [duplicate]
Is there a way to find a man page given a Standard-C-type or POSIX-type? Such as man size_t or man uintptr_t. This kind of thing can get confusing because uintptr_t is defined in stdint.h, and size_t ...
-1
votes
1answer
446 views
What Debian/Ubuntu package has the documentation for the standard C headers?
On the back of this question, but Debian/Ubuntu specific that has C-standard library headers like (taken from Wikipedia)
assert.h , complex.h , ctype.h , errno.h , fenv.h
, float.h , inttypes.h , ...
0
votes
0answers
28 views
Looking up docs for C header files? [duplicate]
On Ubuntu if I type man 2 time I get,
NAME
time - get time in seconds
SYNOPSIS
#include <time.h>
time_t time(time_t *tloc);
...
I get that this works because time is the ...
2
votes
1answer
436 views
Is this considered an argument? [duplicate]
Some binaries in Unix-Linux systems like ping or mount have a long argument. For example if we write ping -h in the terminal, one of the options is:
Usage: ping [-aAbBdDfhLnOqrRUvV64]
Is this long ...
0
votes
1answer
91 views
Incomplete documentation for FreeBSD ipfw
When I see the official documentation of ipfw or the man pages it seems that it is sometimes incomplete. Specifically, there are a lot of options like,
firewall_myservices
firewall_allowservices
...
0
votes
0answers
68 views
Is there C language documentation on Linux? [duplicate]
Is there a package on Debian or some other Linux media that provides documentation for the C language? I mean in particular man pages. Eg. so that I can check docs for typedef or other basics (and ...
1
vote
0answers
499 views
Kernel man pages, make: *** No rule to make target 'installmandocs'
As a follow up to this question, How to make the kernel section 9 manpages which document functions, data structures, and headers?. I downloaded the kernel source code and in the source dir execute
...
1
vote
1answer
82 views
Where is official documentation about locking mechanisms for etckeeper, apt, and/or dpkg?
Context:
Want to put a lock on etckeeper/apt hook activity during special backup.
Objective is to preserve whole package integrity, e.g., wait until any package installation is complete, and then ...
