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16. Pre-installed Documentation

This chapter tells you where to find documentation on a common LINUX distribution. The paths are derived from a RedHat distribution, but are no less applicable to other distributions, although the exact locations might be different. One difference between distributions is the migration of documentation source from /usr/???? to /usr/share/????--the proper place for them--on account of their being shareable between different machines. See Chapter 35 for the reason documentation goes where it does. In many cases, documentation may not be installed or may be in completely different locations. Unfortunately, I cannot keep track of what the 20 major vendors are doing, so it is likely that this chapter will quickly become out of date.

For many proprietary operating systems, the definitive reference for their operating system is printed texts. For LINUX, much of documentation is written by the authors themselves and is included with the source code. A typical LINUX distribution will package documentation along with the compiled binaries. Common distributions come with hundreds of megabytes of printable, hyperlinked, and plain text documentation. There is often no need to go the the World Wide Web unless something is outdated.

If you have not already tried this, run

ls -ld /usr/*/doc /usr/*/*/doc /usr/share/*/*/doc \         /opt/*/doc /opt/*/*/doc

This is a somewhat unreliable way to search for potential documentation directories, but it gives at least the following list of directories for an official RedHat 7.0 with a complete set of installed packages:

/usr/X11R6/doc             /usr/share/vim/vim57/doc /usr/lib/X11/doc           /usr/share/doc /usr/local/doc             /usr/share/gphoto/doc /usr/share/texmf/doc       /usr/share/lout/doc

Kernel documentation: /usr/src/linux/Documentation/

This directory contains information on all hardware drivers except graphic cards. The kernel has built-in drivers for networking cards, SCSI controllers, sound cards, and so on. If you need to find out if one of these is supported, this is the first place to look.

X Window System graphics hardware support: /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/

(This is the same as /usr/X11R6/doc/.) In this directory you will find documentation on all of the graphics hardware supported by X, how to configure X, tweak video modes, cope with incompatible graphics cards, and so on. See Section 43.5 for details.

TEX and Meta-Font reference: /usr/share/texmf/doc/

This directory has an enormous and comprehensive reference to the TEX typesetting language and the Meta-Font font generation package. It is not, however, an exhaustive reference.

L^ATEX HTML documentation: /usr/share/texmf/doc/latex/latex2e-html/

This directory contains a large reference to the L^ATEX typesetting language. (This book itself was typeset using L^ATEX.)

HOWTOs: /usr/doc/HOWTO or /usr/share/doc/HOWTO

HOWTOs are an excellent source of layman tutorials for setting up almost any kind of service you can imagine. RedHat seems to no longer ship this documentation with their base set of packages. It is worth listing the contents here to emphasize diversity of topics covered. These are mirrored all over the Internet, so you should have no problem finding them from a search engine (in particular, from http://www.linuxdoc.org/):

3Dfx-HOWTO	Finnish-HOWTO	Modem-HOWTO	Security-HOWTO
AX25-HOWTO	Firewall-HOWTO	Multi-Disk-HOWTO	Serial-HOWTO
Access-HOWTO	French-HOWTO	Multicast-HOWTO	Serial-Programming-HOWTO
Alpha-HOWTO	Ftape-HOWTO	NET-3-HOWTO	Shadow-Password-HOWTO
Assembly-HOWTO	GCC-HOWTO	NFS-HOWTO	Slovenian-HOWTO
Bash-Prompt-HOWTO	German-HOWTO	NIS-HOWTO	Software-Release-Practice-HOWTO
Benchmarking-HOWTO	Glibc2-HOWTO	Networking-Overview-HOWTO	Sound-HOWTO
Beowulf-HOWTO	HAM-HOWTO	Optical-Disk-HOWTO	Sound-Playing-HOWTO
BootPrompt-HOWTO	Hardware-HOWTO	Oracle-HOWTO	Spanish-HOWTO
Bootdisk-HOWTO	Hebrew-HOWTO	PCI-HOWTO	TeTeX-HOWTO
Busmouse-HOWTO	INDEX.html	PCMCIA-HOWTO	Text-Terminal-HOWTO
CD-Writing-HOWTO	INFO-SHEET	PPP-HOWTO	Thai-HOWTO
CDROM-HOWTO	IPCHAINS-HOWTO	PalmOS-HOWTO	Tips-HOWTO
COPYRIGHT	IPX-HOWTO	Parallel-Processing-HOWTO	UMSDOS-HOWTO
Chinese-HOWTO	IR-HOWTO	Pilot-HOWTO	UPS-HOWTO
Commercial-HOWTO	ISP-Hookup-HOWTO	Plug-and-Play-HOWTO	UUCP-HOWTO
Config-HOWTO	Installation-HOWTO	Polish-HOWTO	Unix-Internet-Fundamentals-HOWTO
Consultants-HOWTO	Intranet-Server-HOWTO	Portuguese-HOWTO	User-Group-HOWTO
Cyrillic-HOWTO	Italian-HOWTO	PostgreSQL-HOWTO	VAR-HOWTO
DNS-HOWTO	Java-CGI-HOWTO	Printing-HOWTO	VME-HOWTO
DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO	Kernel-HOWTO	Printing-Usage-HOWTO	VMS-to-Linux-HOWTO
DOS-to-Linux-HOWTO	Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO	Quake-HOWTO	Virtual-Services-HOWTO
DOSEMU-HOWTO	KickStart-HOWTO	README	WWW-HOWTO
Danish-HOWTO	LinuxDoc+Emacs+Ispell-HOWTO	RPM-HOWTO	WWW-mSQL-HOWTO
Distribution-HOWTO	META-FAQ	Reading-List-HOWTO	XFree86-HOWTO
ELF-HOWTO	MGR-HOWTO	Root-RAID-HOWTO	XFree86-Video-Timings-HOWTO
Emacspeak-HOWTO	MILO-HOWTO	SCSI-Programming-HOWTO	XWindow-User-HOWTO
Esperanto-HOWTO	MIPS-HOWTO	SMB-HOWTO
Ethernet-HOWTO	Mail-HOWTO	SRM-HOWTO

Mini HOWTOs: /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini or /usr/share/doc/HOWTO/mini

These are smaller quick-start tutorials in the same vein (also available from http://www.linuxdoc.org/):

3-Button-Mouse	DHCPcd	Leased-Line	PLIP	Software-RAID
ADSL	DPT-Hardware-RAID	Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2	Partition	Soundblaster-AWE
ADSM-Backup	Diald	Linux+FreeBSD	Partition-Rescue	StarOffice
AI-Alife	Diskless	Linux+FreeBSD-mini-HOWTO	Path	Term-Firewall
Advocacy	Ext2fs-Undeletion	Linux+NT-Loader	Pre-Installation-Checklist	TkRat
Alsa-sound	Fax-Server	Linux+Win95	Process-Accounting	Token-Ring
Apache+SSL+PHP+fp	Firewall-Piercing	Loadlin+Win95	Proxy-ARP-Subnet	Ultra-DMA
Automount	GIS-GRASS	Loopback-Root-FS	Public-Web-Browser	Update
Backup-With-MSDOS	GTEK-BBS-550	Mac-Terminal	Qmail+MH	Upgrade
Battery-Powered	Hard-Disk-Upgrade	Mail-Queue	Quota	VAIO+Linux
Boca	INDEX	Mail2News	RCS	VPN
BogoMips	INDEX.html	Man-Page	README	Vesafb
Bridge	IO-Port-Programming	Modules	RPM+Slackware	Visual-Bell
Bridge+Firewall	IP-Alias	Multiboot-with-LILO	RedHat-CD	Windows-Modem-Sharing
Bzip2	IP-Masquerade	NCD-X-Terminal	Remote-Boot	WordPerfect
Cable-Modem	IP-Subnetworking	NFS-Root	Remote-X-Apps	X-Big-Cursor
Cipe+Masq	ISP-Connectivity	NFS-Root-Client	SLIP-PPP-Emulator	XFree86-XInside
Clock	Install-From-ZIP	Netrom-Node	Secure-POP+SSH	Xterm-Title
Coffee	Kerneld	Netscape+Proxy	Sendmail+UUCP	ZIP-Drive
Colour-ls	LBX	Netstation	Sendmail-Address-Rewrite	ZIP-Install
Cyrus-IMAP	LILO	News-Leafsite	Small-Memory
DHCP	Large-Disk	Offline-Mailing	Software-Building

LINUX documentation project: /usr/doc/LDP or /usr/share/doc/ldp

The LDP project's home page is http://www.linuxdoc.org/. The LDP is a consolidation of HOWTOs, FAQs, several books, man pages, and more. The web site will have anything that is not already installed on your system.

Web documentation: /home/httpd/html or /var/www/html

Some packages may install documentation here so that it goes online automatically if your web server is running. (In older distributions, this directory was /home/httpd/html.)

Apache reference: /home/httpd/html/manual or /var/www/html/manual

Apache keeps this reference material online, so that it is the default web page shown when you install Apache for the first time. Apache is the most popular web server.

Manual pages: /usr/man/ or /usr/share/man/

Manual pages were discussed in Section 4.7. Other directory superstructures (see page ) may contain man pages--on some other UNIX systems man pages are littered everywhere.

To convert a man page to PostScript (for printing or viewing), use, for example (for the cp command),

groff -Tps -mandoc /usr/man/man1/cp.1 > cp.ps ; gv cp.ps groff -Tps -mandoc /usr/share/man/man1/cp.1 > cp.ps ; gv cp.ps

info pages: /usr/info/ or /usr/share/info/

Info pages were discussed in Section 4.8.

Individual package documentation: /usr/doc/* or /usr/share/doc/*

Finally, all packages installed on the system have their own individual documentation directory. A package foo will most probably have a documentation directory /usr/doc/foo (or /usr/share/doc/foo). This directory most often contains documentation released with the sources of the package, such as release information, feature news, example code, or FAQs. If you have a particular interest in a package, you should always scan its directory in /usr/doc (or /usr/share/doc) or, better still, download its source distribution.

Below are the /usr/doc (or /usr/share/doc) directories that contained more than a trivial amount of documentation for that package. In some cases, the package had complete references. (For example, the complete Python references were contained nowhere else.)

ImageMagick-5.2.2	gcc-c++-2.96	libtool-1.3.5	pmake-2.1.34
LPRng-3.6.24	ghostscript-5.50	libxml-1.8.9	pygtk-0.6.6
XFree86-doc-4.0.1	gimp-1.1.25	lilo-21.4.4	python-docs-1.5.2
bash-2.04	glibc-2.1.92	lsof-4.47	rxvt-2.6.3
bind-8.2.2_P5	gtk+-1.2.8	lynx-2.8.4	sane-1.0.3
cdrecord-1.9	gtk+-devel-1.2.8	ncurses-devel-5.1	sgml-tools-1.0.9
cvs-1.10.8	ipchains-1.3.9	nfs-utils-0.1.9.1	slang-devel-1.4.1
fetchmail-5.5.0	iproute-2.2.4	openjade-1.3	stylesheets-1.54.13rh
freetype-1.3.1	isdn4k-utils-3.1	openssl-0.9.5a	tin-1.4.4
gawk-3.0.6	krb5-devel-1.2.1	pam-0.72	uucp-1.06.1
gcc-2.96	libtiff-devel-3.5.5	pine-4.21	vim-common-5.7

 

Dies ist ein Mirror des RUTE-Projekts von Paul Sheer (RUTE = Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition). Die offizielle Projekt-Homepage findet sich im Web unter www.icon.co.za/~psheer/rute-home.html. Dieser Mirror wurde zuletzt aktualisiert auf die Version 1.0.0 am Samstag, 28 Januar 2006 22:06 +0100. Das RUTE-Tutorial kann auch zum Offline-Lesen in verschiedenen Dateiformaten heruntergeladen werden.