Looking up information in the built-in manual page
In this recipe, we will learn how to look up information in the built-in manual pages. We will learn how we can look up everything from commands, system calls, and standard library functions. The manual pages are mighty once you get used to using them. Instead of searching the internet for answers, it's often quicker—and more accurate—to take a look in the manual.
Getting ready
Some of the manual pages (library calls and system calls) are installed as part of the build-essential package for Debian and Ubuntu. In Fedora-based distributions such as CentOS, these are often already installed in the base system as part of a package called man pages. If you are missing some manual pages, make sure you have installed these packages. Take a look at the very first recipe in this chapter, on how to install packages, to learn more.
If you are on a minimal or slim installation, the man
command might not be installed...