Linux search tool for newbies?

jamison20000e · 02-29-2016, 08:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sag47

... /usr/share/man ...

I thought of bringing up this directory in general...

sag47 · 02-29-2016, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sag47

Oft used commands are typically from the coreutils package. The coreutils manual breaks down by what you want to accomplish. Manual is typically installable in a package.

grep -irl "search term" /usr/share/man is another search method.

One minor correction. grep doesn't handle gzip well I've just learned (the grep command works on zip). Instead a find command using zgrep would work. e.g.

Code:

find /usr/share/man -type f -name '*.gz' -exec zgrep -il "search term" {} \;

It could be wrapped with a bash function to provide more accessibility.

fanoflq · 03-01-2016, 07:22 AM

I found info has the best possible solution for command line search help since it categorized a menu of major topics.

And Coreutills command line tools is listed in info also and it is categorized under its own menu of major topics.

That is probably the best command line help solution when you do not have online access.

I wonder if info utility is included in all server distros.

Thanks for all the suggestions.