FreeBSD manuals
One of the easiest ways to find out how to use many commands and some applications is through the FreeBSD man command.
The word "man" stands for "manual", a series of online pages which can tell you the purpose of many commands. In a highly condensed format, man pages provide a summary of a command's purpose, the options available, and the syntax which is used to issue the command.
If your FreeBSD is working and manuals are installed
One good way to find information about particular programs or commands on FreeBSD is to read the manual pages with the "man" command.
Type:
at your shell prompt, where program is the name of the command you are curious about.
For example,
tells you how the ls command works, what arguments it accepts, and some known bugs.
Another good tool is the apropos command. If you type
a list of all man pages that contain keyword in their name field will be returned.
Of course, like any good help system, the man command has its own man page. At the prompt, type:
to display the manual page.
If not...
Use the FreeBSDManPage.com online manual database. :)
Manual sections
The manual is generally split into nine numbered sections, organized as follows on FreeBSD:
- 1. General commands
- 2. System calls
- 3. C library functions
- 4. Special files and drivers
- 5. File formats and conventions
- 6. Games and screensavers
- 7. Miscellaneous
- 8. System administration commands and daemons
- 9. Kernel developer pages
Directions for use of this site:
To search manual pages, type keywords into the search field at top of this page, and click on the "Search" button. For example, to find information from sata , simply enter sata into the search field at top and click on the button.