SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

• Chapter 3
• Locate and Use Help Resources

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Objectives

• Objective 1Access and Use man Pages
• Objective 2Use info Pages
• Objective 3Access Release Notes and White Papers
• Objective 4Use GUI-Based Help
• Objective 5Find Help on the Web

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Objective 1Access 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
• LANGen_EN man man

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Objective 1Access and Use man Pages (continued)

• The first page of the manual pages

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Objective 1Access and Use man Pages (continued)

• Parts of a manual page

Table 3-1 Parts of a manual page
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Objective 1Access and Use man Pages (continued)

• 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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Table 3-2 less command keys
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Objective 1Access and Use man Pages (continued)
Table 3-3 Sections in manual pages
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Objective 1Access and Use man Pages (continued)

• 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 2Use 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 2Use 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
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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 3Access 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
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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 4Use GUI-Based Help

• An online help tool is available for graphical
  applications
• See Figure 3-2
• To start the online help, select Computer gt More
  Applications gt System gt 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
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Objective 5Find 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