Documentation or Manuals
 

Good morning Gentlemen,

This is JaDan I'm new to this Mandrive Linux Operating system and I want to know how to get or download the Documentation or Online Manuals for the programs that came with it. Can some one please help me out here.

Thank you,

JaDan

Basic documentation comes with your distribution in the form of texinfo or man files.

In a terminal, type "apropos <subject>" to see if there are any documents about the thing you want to know about. Then "info <document>" to read it.

For eg.... so I would type "info firefox" (or "man firefox") to find out about firefox.

Online, there is the linux documentation project.

Linux is very short on detailed documentation.
Most stuff has it's own homepage which may or may not include the kind of documentation you need. Most assistance is in the form of howto's or tutorials or wiki pages. Googling for these will help.

However: linux is very large. There is a lot of reading involved.
You could start with: http://www.mandriva.com/

After that, you can google/ask-about specific apps or tasks.

Documentation or Manuals
 

Why do I find this system so complicated? Being a new user of Linux/Ubuntu, for me, requires a manual that can be carried around while in transit to or fro work and home. Is there a manual other than online in forums or the documentation pages that can be used for someone who has absolutely no clue of this system but would love to learn and utilize this system?

Mandriva supplies a digital set of documentation which you can install using the Mandriva Software Installer. There are many books about Linux that you can purchase at your local book store, and finally, you can access a great deal of information at the Linux Documentation Project as linked above.

As for the Mandriva documentation, look in the Mandriva Software Package Installer under Books > Computer books. I suggest you start with the following two items: mandriva-doc-Introducing-<language>, and mandriva-doc-Mastering-Manual-<language> which may already be installed. If they are you can access them at Documentation > Quick Startup Guide in <language> (introducing), and Documentation > Mandriva Linux Startup Guide in <Language> (Mastering) in the menu system.

If you want to learn about the bash command interpreter, install bash doc. You will be best served to look through the available documentation provided with Mandriva and install anything that appeals to you.

HTH,

No idea why you find this system so complicated. Most people would rather not carry the book around.

All OSs have the same sort of documentation - the main difference is that the linux man pages are much more technical than the "help" menu hints of other systems. Still, systems like Ubuntu have a help-system of sorts.

You want a text book to learn from or a reference?

There are indeed many.

You need to take care with them though, the rapid development time means that by the time a book makes it to print it is probably out of date. Still, they can be handy - many gurus here started out with the "for dummies" books :)

You have specified Mandriva in your first post and Ubuntu in your followup. Which is it?

You have a reply for Mandriva:

For Ubuntu:

Pocket Guide
a whole range
... all of these are out of date - note that "Ubuntu Linux Essentials" on that page has an online edition which is up to date.
Buy online

- all the electronic copies can also be purchased as regular books...

The best approach to print books is to find a technical bookstore with a range - pick off the most recently published titles from the shelf and try reading them. Buy the one you can most easily understand. A really good test is to see if the book covers a problem you have already struggled with (and know the solution to).

However, most people who are already used to other computer systems just need a crash course - for familiarization. You probably just need to wrap your head around the way things are done. Here's one for Ubuntu [pdf 334kB]. The exercizes take 6-12hrs to complete.

I don't recall Windows providing written documentation for some years now.

In MCC, look for packages with `doc' in the name. Some packages may have separate documentation packages associated with them. On example is Samba. The samba-doc package contains three O'Reilly books that are the same ones that you can find in a book store.

Also look in /usr/share/doc/. This is where you will find README files for a package. Sometimes there is a lot of docs on the web. The CTAN site has a lot if you want to learn TeX or LaTeX, for example.

If you install a source package, you can build a pdf or ps printworthy book for many packages, from the texinfo source. One example is for CoreUtils, another is for Awk.