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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Is there a better way to browse man pages? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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For many, many years now when I want to browse a man page about something I'll type man X into my terminal, substituting X for whatever it is I wish to learn about. Depending on the manual, it's short and therefore easy to find what I want, or I am deep in the woods because I'm trying to find a specific flag that appears many times in a very long document. Woe is me if the flag switch is a bare letter, like x.

And let's say it is x. Now I am searching with /x followed by n n n n n n n n N n n n n n. Obviously I'm not finding the information I want, the search is literal (not fuzzy, nor "whole word"), and even if I find something the manual pager might overshoot me because finding text will move the found line to the top of the terminal, and maybe the information I really want comes one or two lines above.

So... there HAS to be a better way, right? There has to be a modern, fast, easily greppable version to go through a man page. Does it exist?

P.S. I am not talking about summaries like tldr because I typically don't need summaries but actual technical descriptions.

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[–] Andy@programming.dev 1 points 2 months ago

As someone else said, setting less' jump value is helpful.

Another tool I use, mostly for the zshall manpage, is https://github.com/kristopolous/mansnip

[–] troyunrau@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

In KDE, there used to be man: as a protocol that you could use from Konqueror or anything else for that matter. Does it still exist?

I'm at work and cannot check.

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[–] Rozauhtuno@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 months ago

It's not exactly what you asked for, but the fish shell has often explanations of what each flag does.

[–] Tovervlag@feddit.nl -2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I lately often use chatgpt for these kind of things. It's amazing in breaking down the parameters and what they mean. Verify, especially when the problem is hard and apparently unfindable. Chatgpt won't find it either. It sometimes makes up things in these scenarios.

edit: You guys are allowed to not like my post but it really helps me so why not try it instead of just downvoting.

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