Questions tagged [documentation]
Manuals or other information for system users detailing software features and functionality.
216
questions
0
votes
1
answer
60
views
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
9
views
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?
1
vote
1
answer
36
views
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?
1
vote
1
answer
104
views
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 ...
0
votes
1
answer
50
views
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 ...
0
votes
1
answer
62
views
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:
...
4
votes
1
answer
449
views
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
197
views
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
121
views
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 ...
-1
votes
1
answer
56
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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 ...
2
votes
1
answer
128
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 ...
0
votes
0
answers
51
views
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? ...
1
vote
1
answer
101
views
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
56
views
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 ...
1
vote
2
answers
60
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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-...
1
vote
1
answer
117
views
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 ...
0
votes
3
answers
103
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
2
answers
1k
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
2
answers
64
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
2
answers
50
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
1
answer
114
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-...
1
vote
1
answer
1k
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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
343
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
1
answer
48
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 ...
59
votes
4
answers
8k
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
1
answer
234
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
2
answers
4k
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
1
answer
569
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
1
answer
80
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 (...
4
votes
1
answer
3k
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
1
answer
208
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
3
answers
805
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-...
3
votes
1
answer
378
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
1
answer
3k
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 /...
4
votes
2
answers
8k
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? ...
10
votes
2
answers
5k
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
0
answers
43
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 ...
4
votes
2
answers
4k
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
1
answer
370
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
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 ...
1
vote
1
answer
215
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?
1
vote
2
answers
427
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
0
answers
62
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 ...
4
votes
0
answers
615
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
1
answer
320
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
1
answer
22
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 ...
16
votes
4
answers
2k
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
3
answers
3k
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 ...
5
votes
2
answers
9k
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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
...
3
votes
1
answer
70
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 ...