How to access the Help Files?

StefanP · 04-25-2007, 01:20 PM

I should start with "I'm not a big fan of Windows either..." but that is obvious since I'm trying to use Linux (Debian 4.0)... However I cannot say I would ever be a fan (not in year 2007 anyway) of reading any documentation on a black screen with white text (seems that "man" pages are to be read that way). Could anyone tell me where and how to find those help files (for everything that has to be done in Linux) in a format that could be read in a "windows type" graphical interface?

Thanks

cgjones · 04-25-2007, 01:38 PM

I believe that Yelp can be used to view man pages.

StefanP · 04-25-2007, 01:40 PM

I looked in Yelp but I couldn't find it...

cgjones · 04-25-2007, 01:46 PM

You couldn't find what?

brianL · 04-25-2007, 04:30 PM

Go to -> Main menu-> Debian-> Help-> Debian Reference. See if that helps.

jschiwal · 04-25-2007, 05:13 PM

You could read manpages like:
man -t fdisk | kghostview -

Another way is to enter
man:fdisk in konqueror. This also works for info pages as well, info:bashref

If you download the source for a package, you can run "./configure && make pdf" to generate a print worthy version of the info docs from the .texi source.

pixellany · 04-26-2007, 08:16 AM

The man pages are not supposed to be "help files"--they are intended to be sort of like cue cards to help you remember the details of how to us a particular command. If you don't like reading them in a terminal, there are websites where you can read them.

GUI-based programs have varying degrees of help files done in the traditional way.

Better answers if you tell us exactly what you need help with.