The latest articles on DEV Community by Hossam (@hbadr). https://dev.to/hbadr https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=90,height=90,fit=cover,gravity=auto,format=auto/https:%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Fuser%2Fprofile_image%2F504228%2F93759c1b-911b-4642-b9b9-aa241c2d878c.jpg https://dev.to/hbadr en Hossam Tue, 17 May 2022 21:50:54 +0000 https://dev.to/hbadr/getting-help-with-linux-commands-154j https://dev.to/hbadr/getting-help-with-linux-commands-154j <p>It is kind of easy to get lost in the realm of Linux commands. It is not easy to memorize hundreds of commands and thousands of options and arguments. <br> Here in this post I am going to list some of the possible ways that can help with getting documentation and usage examples for whichever command you are looking for.</p> <h2> man </h2> <p><code>man</code> is the system manual pager that you can give an argument that represents a command, utility or a function and it should represent its documentation for you.</p> <h3> Usage example </h3> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>man wget </code></pre> </div> <p>Running the command above will print out to the console a full description of the <code>wget</code> command (which is by the way, a program that can download files from the internet and it supports multiple protocols) along with all the available options and arguments.</p> <p>If <code>man</code> doesn't exist in your system, you can use <code>sudo apt install man-db</code> to be able to use it in your distro if it supports apt package manager.</p> <h2> info </h2> <p><code>info</code> is a software utility that presents infotext documentation as an easy to travers tree that you can go through.</p> <h3> Usage example </h3> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>info wget </code></pre> </div> <p>This will print out the the console textinfo documentation about <code>wget</code> command.</p> <p>You can also navigate to a specific section in the documentation by specifing it as an argument<br> </p> <div class="highlight js-code-highlight"> <pre class="highlight plaintext"><code>info wget examples </code></pre> </div> <p>Will take you directly to the examples section of wget documentation.</p> <h2> usr/share/doc </h2> <p>Most application will have a readme file that you can open in the directory <code>usr/share/doc</code></p> <h2> --help </h2> <p>Will show you usage guide for almost any command. They maybe simplified but you can pipe them through <code>less</code> to read at your own speed.</p> linux bash devops