1. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration
Chapter 3
Locate and Use Help Resources

2. Objectives Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages
Objective 2—Use info Pages
Objective 3—Access Release Notes and White Papers
Objective 4—Use GUI-Based Help
Objective 5—Find Help on the Web
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

3. Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages
man command
The most important command for online help
All manual pages are available in English
And many have been translated into other languages
To display the English version of the man page for the man command
LANG=en_EN man man
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

4. Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages (continued)
The first page of the manual pages
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

5. Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages (continued)
Parts of a manual page
Table 3-1 Parts of a manual page
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

6. Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages (continued)
The program man uses the program less to display the manual pages
Within less, the display of text is controlled by the keys shown in Table 3-2
The manual pages are organized in the sections shown in Table 3-3
It is especially important to know to which section a command belongs
When the command has more than one manual page
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

7. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration
Table 3-2 less command keys
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

8. Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages (continued)
Table 3-3 Sections in manual pages
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

9. Objective 1—Access and Use man Pages (continued)
You can display a brief description of all the available manual pages for a command or utility
By using the whatis command
Manual pages are located in the directory /usr/share/man/
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

10. Exercise 3-1: Access and Use man Pages
In this exercise, use the whatis and man commands to get information on the info command
In the manual page, look for filename
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

11. Objective 2—Use info Pages
A whole series of programs are no longer provided with manual pages
Instead, info files are used, which can be read with the info command
info files are located in the directory /usr/share/info/
Advantages of the info file format:
It uses a structured document setup
Specific sections can be reached directly from the table of contents
Specific sections can be linked
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

12. Objective 2—Use info Pages (continued)
The beginning of the info file for the info command
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

13. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration
Table 3-4 Most commonly used key commands for the info command
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

14. Exercise 3-2: Access and Use info Pages
In this exercise, use the info command to get information on info and navigate through the info text
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

15. Objective 3—Access Release Notes and White Papers
Release notes, white papers, and other sources of helpful information
Stored in the directory /usr/share/doc/
This directory contains the following:
Release Notes
Manuals
Help for Installed Packages
HOWTOs
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

16. Release Notes
When you complete the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
The release notes appear in a window
See Figure 3-1
You can find them in various languages in the directory /usr/share/doc/release-notes/SUSE_Linux Enterprise_Desktop__10/
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

17. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration
Figure 3-1 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop release notes
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

18. Manuals
A PDF version of the manual is in /usr/share/doc/manual/sled deployment_en/
If you prefer HTML, an HTML version is available in the manual/subfolder
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

19. Help for Installed Packages
Help files are available in the following directory for most installed packages:
/usr/share/doc/packages/package-name/
These help files are written by the programmers of the package
Therefore, the format of these files is not standardized
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

20. HOWTOs
You can find additional information (including background material) in the howtos
A howto is available for almost every imaginable topic in Linux
You can find a list of all current howtos at
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

21. Objective 4—Use GUI-Based Help
An online help tool is available for graphical applications
See Figure 3-2
To start the online help, select Computer > More Applications > System > Yelp
Use the links to navigate through the content
You also can use the search function to speed up your search for help
The online help is available in most GNOME applications and can be started by pressing F1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

22. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration
Figure 3-2 GUI-based help
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

23. Objective 5—Find Help on the Web
Some of the more frequently used Linux sites:
(especially for security issues)
(especially for security issues)
(especially for issues in connection with the Linux kernel)
(follow the links on Linux)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

24. Exercise 3-3: Access Release Notes and Find Help on the Web
In this exercise, you access release notes and find help on the Web
Use the Nautilus file manager to access the release notes in /usr/share/doc/releasenotes/
Start Firefox and access the Linux Documentation Project at
Look for updates for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on the Novell support Web site
Then, use the Google Linux search engine to find information on GNOME and SLED10 in the Internet
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration

25. Summary
There are several help resources available locally on your SUSE Linux system as well as on the Internet
The manual pages contain the syntax and usage of most commands and files on your system
The info pages are an alternative to the man pages that format information differently and can contain links to other sections
The /usr/share/doc directory contains the manual and release notes for the SUSE Linux installation
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Administration