Linux man pages support has been deprecated
The Linux man pages section of SysTutorials is no longer available. Every Linux system ships its own manuals: here is how to install and read them on a Linux box.
Reading man pages
To read the manual for a command, library call, or file format, run man:
man ls
Manuals are organized in sections: 1 is user commands, 2 system calls, 3 library functions, 5 file formats, and 8 administration commands. When a name appears in several sections, pass the section first:
man 5 passwd
Search manuals by keyword with apropos (equivalent to man -k), and get a one-line summary with whatis:
apropos "copy files"
whatis ls
Installing man pages
Most distributions include the man reader (man-db) and the core manuals by default. If they are missing:
- Debian/Ubuntu:
sudo apt install man-db manpages manpages-dev - Fedora/RHEL:
sudo dnf install man-db man-pages - Arch Linux:
sudo pacman -S man-db man-pages
After installing, build the keyword database once:
sudo mandb