Errr a few n00b questions about using terminal
 

errr how do I get out of the man page? When I want to do man something, I can't get back! hehe it's not really a big problem but I don't want to open a new terminal everytime I perform man (which I do a lot :D)

Or an alternative would be, is there a command that will open the man page in a new window?

n00b question number 2... can I change the colors of my panels? How do I do this without using another theme?

how about pressing "q" for quit

first question: simply press the button "q" on your keyboard, to _q_uit :) that's it...or, if you just wish to put it aside for a moment, press CTRL+Z and it magically disappears (but won't close - this is the magic). when you want it back again, type

jobs

and you'll see your running/stopped jobs. if you haven't ctrl+z:ed other jobs than this, you bring it back by typing

fg 1

and if you have put many apps into background (ctrl+z), then they can be get back with their numbers - 1 is the first you put into background, 2 is the second, 3 is the third and so on...so if you open "man" and put it into bg, then open irssi and put it into bg, you can get man back to foreground with

fg 1

and irssi back into fg with

fg 2

that's that... :) but the q button is your exit button. fg and bg are very usable, you should get to know them when you feel you're ready...check out man fg and man bg :)

and the panel colouring: are you talking about Gnome? if so, then just right-click your panel, then choose Prefences, the tab Background and Solid Color and pick it up. that is, if you're talking about Gnome Panel :)

argh I feel so stupid now. can't believe I didn't try q! hehe looks like I don't have the manual page for bg and fg :(

Anyway I'm using KDE, 3.1.2 if it matters , and I can't find where I can change my panel colors :(

You won't [well maybe you could but I doubt it] have a manual page for fg and bg. They are built in shell commands not seperate programs. `man bash` to learn about them. Hint -- you can search forward in a large manpage by typing /searchphrase[ENTER]

And just use /[ENTER] to keep going forward (this assumed your $PAGER is more or less -- if it is most then use N).

Oooooh I was wondering how I'd search through the text. hehe I'm learning a lot right now :D

Thanks!

Hmmm I have one more questions :D I think that I'd just add it here :p

n00b question # 3: How do I change the splash image in grub? does it have to be in tar.gz (or xpm.gz me thinks). Coz I tried replacing the image /etc/fstab... only I replaced it with a .xpm file and it screwed up. hehe

http://www.tldp.org/LDP/LG/current/jayanth.html

This will explain how to do the GRUB splash image. I would cut and paste it but that would take up too much room and not give credit where it is due. I don't use grub so I wasn't sure myself.

hey thanks for the link! Ima try that :D hope I don't screw up again :d

In Konqueror, if you type 'man:/topic' in the Location bar then you will get the man page in the main panel, fully page-up/down-able, resizeable, and you will also have click-able links, eg in the 'see also' section. This also works for (at least some) info pages.

There are some gui man readers like xman and gman if you want to read man pages in a graphical setting. I also sometimes use a nifty little program called xless that works like less but in a gui window.

Also, don't forget to read man man. :)

Pablo:
Read up on the vi editor. Most of the stuff you see in the terminal like man pages come up in this. The other big editor is called emacs (which I know nada about, but lots of ppl like it). So if you want to see long files or anything and they scroll too fast, you can use vi to see them.
For instance if you wanted to see EVERYTHING under the / partition, it scrolls too fast. You can use
$ cd /
now your there, type
$ ls | less
and now you're probably in the vi editor (default even for most UNIX OSes)
I have to type :q to quit.
If it's a text file like a readme, you can go to where the readme is and type
$ vi whatever/readme.txt
Now you can scroll up and down with arrow keys and read.
And if you have a file like Device and want to change stuff like monitor or mouse settings, vi doesn't let you type anything until you hit the letter "i"
Now you can type and change stuff. When you're done, hit ESC. Now you can type commands like :q again. Don't want to save what you typed? Type :q! Want to save changes? Either :wq or ZZ will work.
This so far has been the most useful tool while learning Linux, even if it's the slow hard way to read stuff I know what I'm doing and can see stuff without wrecking it :) (always a possibility with me)
There are other lttle editors like pine and elm I think, but learning vi opens up whole new Stephen Hawking universes.(whoohoo)
gaviidae

hey thanks. I usually use nano as a text editor, I tried vi and it seems ok, I still dunno what I prefer tho... is it possible to see man pages using vi? the only way I know how to view man files are by type man whatever or xman whatever

also, checking out text files doesn't need vi or emacs..just use cat and less (or more) with pipe:

cat textfile.txt | less

(or change less to more)

and oh...I said earlier "check out man fg", hehe..sorry :) I just typed it in my terminal and saw that some manpage opened and thought it was fg's..well it wasn't. it was "bash builtin commands" info/error page (because man fg didn't exist), so it was my mistake..well now I see what it does to be too quick :P

imho man pages are viewed the best with man. why would one need other tools...I mean, manpages are text and that's it, so if they're simple why wouldn't the app that displays them, be too? well whatever you like, but I like man-command itself :)