Search the 'man' pages

mr tim esquire · 07-28-2008, 01:35 PM

Hello all, google has been bringing me this way for a while now and i've solved many problems from reading the discussions made here... so thanks! Finally ive joined and have a question...
Is there anyway to search the collection of manuals for my system's commands? i.e the ones you get when you type e.g $ man ls
I think if i could search all the manuals I might be able to find commands when I need them without heading to google.

Thanks!
Tim

pwc101 · 07-28-2008, 01:43 PM

Perhaps apropos will help?

Code:

apropos compress
apropos remove
apropos delete

edit: Might also be worth looking at whatis, and my favourite, wtf:

Code:

whatis rm
whatis man
wtf is rm
wtf is lol

mr tim esquire · 07-28-2008, 05:35 PM

Thanks, these are great!
Im not sure if your joking about wtf, i certainly dont have it

haha

jomen · 07-28-2008, 05:54 PM

http://linux.die.net/man/6/wtf
installed it right away

chrism01 · 07-28-2008, 07:33 PM

Just FYI, apropos is approx same as man -k

john test · 07-28-2008, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr tim esquire

Hello all, google has been bringing me this way for a while now and i've solved many problems from reading the discussions made here... so thanks! Finally ive joined and have a question...
Is there anyway to search the collection of manuals for my system's commands? i.e the ones you get when you type e.g $ man ls
I think if i could search all the manuals I might be able to find commands when I need them without heading to google.

Thanks!
Tim

Did you try man -k * | more
or man -k * > manpages.txt
or apropos * | more
or apropos * > manpages.txt

onebuck · 07-28-2008, 10:37 PM

Hi,

'LINUX MAN PAGES ONLINE' is another good reference.

This link and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!