suse linux enterprise desktop administration

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

Chapter 3Locate and Use Help Resources


Objectives

• Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages

• Objective 2—Use info Pages

• Objective 3—Access Release Notes and White Papers

• Objective 4—Use GUI-Based Help

• Objective 5—Find Help on the Web

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Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages

• man command– The most important command for online help

• All manual pages are available in English– And many have been translated into other languages

• To display the English version of the man page for the man command– LANG=en_EN man man

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Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages (continued)

• The first page of the manual pages

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• Parts of a manual page

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Table 3-1 Parts of a manual page



• The program man uses the program less to display the manual pages– Within less, the display of text is controlled by the keys

shown in Table 3-2

• The manual pages are organized in the sections shown in Table 3-3

• It is especially important to know to which section a command belongs– When the command has more than one manual page

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SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration 7

Table 3-2 less command keys



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Table 3-3 Sections in manual pages



• You can display a brief description of all the available manual pages for a command or utility– By using the whatis command

• Manual pages are located in the directory /usr/share/man/

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Exercise 3-1: Access and Use man Pages

• In this exercise, use the whatis and man commands to get information on the info command– In the manual page, look for filename

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Objective 2—Use info Pages

• A whole series of programs are no longer provided with manual pages – Instead, info files are used, which can be read with the info command

• info files are located in the directory /usr/share/info/

• Advantages of the info file format:– It uses a structured document setup– Specific sections can be reached directly from the

table of contents– Specific sections can be linked

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Objective 2—Use info Pages (continued)

• The beginning of the info file for the info command

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Table 3-4 Most commonly used key commands for the info command


Exercise 3-2: Access and Use info Pages

• In this exercise, use the info command to get information on info and navigate through the info text

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Objective 3—Access Release Notes and White Papers

• Release notes, white papers, and other sources of helpful information– Stored in the directory /usr/share/doc/

• This directory contains the following:– Release Notes– Manuals– Help for Installed Packages– HOWTOs

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Release Notes

• When you complete the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server– The release notes appear in a window

• See Figure 3-1

• You can find them in various languages in the directory /usr/share/doc/release-notes/SUSE_Linux Enterprise_Desktop__10/

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Figure 3-1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop release notes


Manuals

• A PDF version of the manual is in /usr/share/doc/manual/sled deployment_en/

• If you prefer HTML, an HTML version is available in the manual/subfolder

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Help for Installed Packages

• Help files are available in the following directory for most installed packages: – /usr/share/doc/packages/package-name/

• These help files are written by the programmers of the package– Therefore, the format of these files is not

standardized

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HOWTOs

• You can find additional information (including background material) in the howtos

• A howto is available for almost every imaginable topic in Linux

• You can find a list of all current howtos at www.tldp.org

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Objective 4—Use GUI-Based Help

• An online help tool is available for graphical applications– See Figure 3-2

• To start the online help, select Computer > More Applications > System > Yelp– Use the links to navigate through the content– You also can use the search function to speed up

your search for help

• The online help is available in most GNOME applications and can be started by pressing F1

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Figure 3-2 GUI-based help


Objective 5—Find Help on the Web

• Some of the more frequently used Linux sites:– www.novell.com/linux– www.tldp.org– www.cert.org (especially for security issues)– www.securityfocus.com (especially for security

issues)– www.kernel.org (especially for issues in connection

with the Linux kernel)– www.novell.com/coolsolutions/ (follow the links on

Linux)

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Exercise 3-3: Access Release Notes and Find Help on the Web

• In this exercise, you access release notes and find help on the Web

• Use the Nautilus file manager to access the release notes in /usr/share/doc/releasenotes/

• Start Firefox and access the Linux Documentation Project at www.tldp.org– Look for updates for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop

10 on the Novell support Web site

• Then, use the Google Linux search engine to find information on GNOME and SLED10 in the Internet

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Summary

• There are several help resources available locally on your SUSE Linux system as well as on the Internet

• The manual pages contain the syntax and usage of most commands and files on your system

• The info pages are an alternative to the man pages that format information differently and can contain links to other sections

• The /usr/share/doc directory contains the manual and release notes for the SUSE Linux installation

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