I've been reading some of the doc files that came with my debian distro. In several places, it says to use a command like mc to execute Midnight Commander, but sometimes it follows that with a number in parentheses. For example, mc(1) or mount(8). When I type these into the console, it returns an error. What does the number in parentheses mean?

Also, some of the documents have things I would like to copy into one of the other consoles (that are accessed through Alt1-6, CtrlAlt1-6 if you are currently in the GUI). Hightlight + Mouse 3 seems to copy into the current console CLI, is there a way to copy into a command line in a different console? Like, if I wanted a ftp address from a doc I looked up pasted into a different console, what steps would I take?

Thanks for help

The numbers signify the manual page sections. mount(8) is in section 8 or "System administration commands and daemons".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_page#Manual_sections

If a command has different sections of man pages then you can call it like so.

I don't think(?) you can copy between consoles like that, but you can open as many xterms (cli term sessions) as you like.