apropos and whatis aren't working in konsole

Apropos and whatis commands don't work in the konsole; the computer responds to everything I type with, 'nothing appropriate'. Please give me some ideas for fixing this problem!

You probably first need to update the databases. Usually this happens automagically from a cron job somewhere in /etc/cron(.daily/?) which you can also run manually. If one is for instance called "/etc/cron.daily/slocate.cron" and it its executable bit is set you just run '/etc/cron.daily/slocate.cron' or '/bin/sh /etc/cron.daily/slocate.cron' if the bit it isn't set.

Originally Posted by unSpawn You probably first need to update the databases. Usually this happens automagically from a cron job somewhere in /etc/cron(.daily/?) which you can also run manually. If one is for instance called "/etc/cron.daily/slocate.cron" and it its executable bit is set you just run '/etc/cron.daily/slocate.cron' or '/bin/sh /etc/cron.daily/slocate.cron' if the bit it isn't set.

I tried both the commands that you told me to use but both commands brought back, 'Not a directory'. Would a reinstall of Mandriva help?

The /etc/cron.daily/makewhatis.cron and /etc/cron.weekly/makewhatis.cron files are provided by the "man" package. If you don't have those two files (and you didn't delete them ;-p) then it could be you simply need to install the "man" and "mlocate" packages: 'urpmi man mlocate'.

Originally Posted by unSpawn The /etc/cron.daily/makewhatis.cron and /etc/cron.weekly/makewhatis.cron files are provided by the "man" package. If you don't have those two files (and you didn't delete them ;-p) then it could be you simply need to install the "man" and "mlocate" packages: 'urpmi man mlocate'.

I ran this command too but it still didn't work; do I need an Internet connection to make the downloads from? Thanks for helping!

Unless you can load the packages from a CDROM or DVD then yes, you need an Internet connection. And the commands won't do much until the first time the database is updated, either via the cron job or by running it manually.

Originally Posted by unSpawn Unless you can load the packages from a CDROM or DVD then yes, you need an Internet connection. And the commands won't do much until the first time the database is updated, either via the cron job or by running it manually.

Thanks for the help but I think I will go back to Fedora!