4.2.1.3. Reading info documents
info info info$ infols
info has many features and can be a bit overwhelming. Each document consists of nodes (analogous to web pages) that are linked together using menu options. The keys listed in Table 4-3 are sufficient for basic navigation.
Table 4-3. Basic navigation in info
| Key | Description |
|---|---|
| Page Up/Page Down | Scroll through the text. |
| p | Go to the previous node. |
| n | Go to the next node. |
| Tab | Jump to the next menu option in the current page. |
| Enter (when the cursor is on a menu option) | Follow the menu option. |
| Space | Go to the next page, or next node if there is no more text in the current node. |
| l | Return to the last node accessed. |
To take a guided tour of info , type:
$ info info
4.2.1.4. Viewing GNOME guides and KDE manuals
To access these guides, just press F1 in a GNOME or KDE application. Alternately, select the SystemHelp (GNOME) or Help (KDE) menu options from the panel bar. The GNOME menu is connected to the GNOME documentation, and the KDE menu is connected to the KDE documentation. You can access the documentation for the other desktop environment from a command prompt; for GNOME documentation, use either of these commands:
$ gnome-help
$ yelp
For KDE documentation:
$ khelpcenter
Each of these tools also provides a graphical user interface for viewing manpages and info documents.
4.2.1.5. Accessing HOWTOs and guides
HOWTO guidesThe TLDP documentation can be found on the Web at http://www.tldp.org/ . TLDP also publishes FAQs and maintains links to online versions of the manpages and free Linux magazines.
4.2.1.6. Viewing text files distributed with applications
/usr/share/doc dia /usr/share/doc/dia-0.95I find that the easiest way to view these documents is to use a web browser, which enables you to navigate among directories and view documents by simply clicking on them. To do this, just open the Firefox web browser and enter /usr/share/doc as the location.
To view these files from the shell prompt, change to the directory you wish to view, and then use ls to list names of the files and less to view the contents of any text files that interest you. For example, here are the steps you might take to view the dia text files:
$ cd /usr/share/doc
$ ls -d dia*
dia-0.95 dialog-1.0.20050306
$ cd dia-0.95
$ ls -l
total 724
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1578 Aug 16 2004 AUTHORS
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 574015 Aug 17 2004 ChangeLog
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 17992 Mar 12 2004 COPYING
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 11364 Aug 16 2004 custom-shapes
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1620 Aug 16 2004 diagram.dtd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3927 Aug 16 2004 INSTALL
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4955 Aug 16 2004 KNOWN_BUGS
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21535 Aug 17 2004 NEWS
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3444 Aug 16 2004 README
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Sep 27 01:13 samples
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2324 Aug 16 2004 shape.dtd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 501 Aug 16 2004 sheet.dtd
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1379 Aug 19 2004 THANKS
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2545 Aug 16 2004 TODO
$ less KNOWN_BUGS
The less command will enable you to scroll through the specified file ( KNOWN_BUGS ) in the same way that you would move through a manpage, using the arrow keys and Page Up/Page Down keys to scroll and q to quit.
Note that this directory also contains a sample directory, which includes some sample files for use with the dia
The special symbols . (same directory) and .. (parent directory) are useful in pathnames. For example, if your current directory is /home/chris/book , then ../invitation refers to /home/chris/invitation .
4.3.1.2. Key directories
Table 4-5. Key directories in Fedora Core
| Directory | Purpose |
|---|---|
| /bin | Basic binaries (programs) needed to start the system. |
| /boot | Files used during the boot process, including the boot menu and kernel. |
| /dev | This directory contains special files that are actually connections to devices, such as keyboards, mice, modems, printers, sound cards, and so forth. When you read data from a special file or write data to it, you're actually communicating with the associated device. |
| /etc | System configuration files (sometimes regarded as the "home directory for the computer"). |
| /home | Users' home directories, for the storage of personal files. |
| /lib | Libraries. |
| /lost+found | A directory used to recover files in the event of filesystem damage. Any file that has been disassociated from its name is placed here during filesystem recovery. |
| /media | External media (floppy disks, USB drives, digital cameras, optical disks) that have been mounted. |
| /mnt | Historical location for mounting storage devices, many of which have now moved to /media . |
| /opt | Optional, add-on software. The definition of add-on software is subjective; if you obtain OpenOffice.org directly from the openoffice.org web site, it will be installed here, but if you install the version distributed with Fedora, it will be installed in /usr/bin . |
| /proc | Per-process status information plus system information. |
| /root | Home directory for the root user (superuser). |
| /sbin | Basic system administration binaries. |
| /selinux | Files for Security Enhanced Linux. |
| /sys | System device information. |
| /tmp | Temporary file storage. |
| /usr | User data (years ago, home directories were also stored in /usr ). |
| /usr/bin | The remainder of the standard binaries. |
| /usr/lib | User libraries. |
| /usr/libexec | Programs that are not directly executed by the user but that are executed by another application (e.g., graphics demos for the xscreensaver program) |
| /usr/local | Local files (specific to your system configuration). |
| /usr/local/bin | Local binaries and scripts. |
| /usr/sbin | The remainder of the system administration binaries. |
| /usr/src | Source code for locally built RPM packages and the Linux kernel. |
| /var | Files that change frequently (variable), including databases, print requests, and logfiles. |
| /var/log | Various system logfiles. |
| /var/spool | Files for various queues (spools), such as print queues and file-transfer queues. |