how to browse linux man by section?

hindi · 12-15-2010, 07:41 AM

GrapefruiTgirl · 12-15-2010, 07:42 AM

This is a great way here, if you have internet access: http://linux.die.net/man/

For local copies, I am not sure, but if there's a way to browse by section on the local machine, I'll be interested to know it too. :-)

brianL · 12-15-2010, 07:49 AM

If you're using KDE, open Help, and scroll right down. All the man pages are available sorted by section.

colucix · 12-15-2010, 08:30 AM

From the command line one way might be to parse the whatis database, looking for a specific section. Example for section 1 man pages:

Code:

grep '(1)' /var/cache/man/whatis

Please note that not all the linux systems provide a whatis database by default. However you can always create it using the makewhatis command (as root).

You can also create a function to list all the man pages, passing the section number as argument, e.g.

Code:

function manls () {
  grep "($1)" /var/cache/man/whatis
}

Checks on the correctness of the argument can be added, as well.

hindi · 12-15-2010, 08:42 AM

is there any command or man option to do it in the terminal

mlangdn · 12-15-2010, 12:00 PM

If your distro has xman, just type that in a terminal. Click on Manual Page to get started. Once you open a page to view, double-click on an entry to get its info. This is good for just plain exploring.

dv502 · 12-16-2010, 04:57 PM

@ hindi

Some commands will have more than one section -- eg. crontab

When you view a manpage, it will list other relevant man pages for the command

An excerpt from man crontab

SEE A
crontab(5), cron(8)

To see those man sections, you would type

man 5 crontab
man 8 cron

äxl · 05-09-2013, 07:07 AM

Sorry for digging this up.
http://shallowsky.com/linux/debnotes.html
"mandb -c does what makewhatis does in other distros and other Unices -- builds the whatis/apropos databases. It's part of the man-db package."

I also couldn't get xman to work at first but it's usually part of every Xserver in x11-apps. Just type xman and browse the man pages.

Gnome Help Browser is called yelp. Looks more neat but has some dependencies.

syg00 · 05-09-2013, 05:07 PM

Maybe use "info" instead. Quite often has more info (sorry ....

), and has all the navigation you'll likely want.

frankbell · 05-09-2013, 09:43 PM

I am fond of the apropos command to investigate man pages.

For example (this is on Debian Wheezy):

Code:

~$ apropos directories
addgnupghome (8)     - Create .gnupg home directories
cp (1)               - copy files and directories
dh_bugfiles (1)      - install bug reporting customization files into package...
dh_clean (1)         - clean up package build directories
dh_compress (1)      - compress files and fix symlinks in package build direc...
dh_fixperms (1)      - fix permissions of files in package build directories
dh_install (1)       - install files into package build directories
dh_installchangelogs (1) - install changelogs into package build directories
dh_installdebconf (1) - install files used by debconf in package build direct...
. . . and so on.

See man apropos for details.