Available Documentation for Linux ********************************* The documentation available for Linux can be divided into online documentation, collections of Frequently Asked Questions (with answers), Linux HOWTO documents, the standard for the structure of Linux file systems, and other sources of information. Documentation available on line =============================== There are at least four kinds of information available online, at least if you have installed all of the MCC Interim packages: internal help Many Linux commands contain helpful information of some kind. Some, like the `bash' shell, contain an interactive `help' command. Others, like the `tar' command, give help when certain command line arguments are given, e.g., `--help' or `--wxyz'. online manuals The system of online manuals is accessed using the `man' command. Type `man man' for more information. In the course of time, more and more manuals are being written or adapted for Linux. info files The "info" system consists of specially formatted manuals which can be read using the `info' or `emacs' command. These manuals have a complex tree structure, and special commands allow you to traverse the tree, use the indices, search for strings, and even jump to other manuals in the info system. text files I have included in the distribution a few files describing commands which are otherwise poorly documented on line. For example, the `lilo' command has no other information on line, so I have placed the file `README.lilo' in `/etc'. Collections of Frequently Asked Questions ========================================= Collections of frequently asked questions, with answers, are a traditional form of information in the Unix and Usenet communities. Many of these can be found at ftp.mcc.ac.uk in the directory `/pub/linux/fi.mirror/doc/FAQ'. The mail programs in this distribution, `elm' and `smail', both have informative FAQs. The file `/usr/lib/emacs/19.22/etc/FAQ' is contained in the MCC emacs package. FAQ files not peculiar to Linux can be found at rtfm.mit.edu in a very large directory tree. Other sites which mirror this tree are ftp.uu.net in `/usenet/news.answers', grasp1.univ.lyon1.fr in `/pub/faq', and ftp.win.tue.nl in `/pub/usenet/news.answers'. The Linux HOWTO documents ========================= The Linux community seems to have invented a new kind of document, more organised (in most cases) than the traditional FAQ file. This is the HOWTO file, most of which can be found at ftp.mcc.ac.uk in the directory `/pub/linux/fi.mirror/doc/HOWTO'. Of particular interest in this category are the HOWTO Index, which lists the currently available HOWTO files, as well as HOWTO files for supported hardware, QIC ftape drivers, mail, Net-2, network news, printing, SCSI devices, Serial ports, sound hardware and software, `uucp', and XFree86. Many of these documents have not yet been updated to take into account the new file system standard. This means that the full path names of many files and directories will not be the same as those which you will install on your system as parts of the MCC distribution. The Linux file system standard ============================== This and other releases of Linux are heavily influenced by the new standard for the Linux directory structure, Linux Filesystem Structure. This replaces the long-outdated standard which most distributions have more or less ignored in the past year. This MCC Interim release tries to observe the new standard as closely as possible. It diverges from the published standard (version 1.0) in the following respects: - Several draft standards have been circulated privately since the official release of version 1.0. MCC Interim Linux follows the March 18th draft where it differs from the earlier document. - The standard, which is still evolving, has not yet specified the location of many portions of packages such as TeX, newsreaders, and other software. Moreover, some software which is not distributed as part of the MCC package, is not yet available for installation in conforming packages. The presence of paths such as `/usr/TeX/bin' in files such as `/etc/profile' reflects this. - The standard has specified that C++ include files should not be in `/usr/g++-include', but in `/usr/include/g++'. This distribution does not feel free to change that location until after H J Lu has adopted this convention in his `official' distribution of the `g++' support files. - The standard is, in my view, unclear about the location of keyboard map files. I have placed them in `/usr/lib/keytables/keytables' rather than in `/etc/keytables/keytables'. The default map file is in `/etc/kbmap', which was used by previous MCC distributions. The standard will probably specify another name for the default keyboard map file. - The standard specifies that the file `/usr/dict/words' should be required in any fully compliant implementation. This file is not contained in the MCC Interim distribution. A copy of a `words' file is available by anonymous ftp from ftp.mcc.ac.uk in `/pub/linux/binaries-4.5.21/usr/dict/words'. A contributed package which installs this file is available from ftp.mcc.ac.uk in `/bin/linux/mcc-interim/1.0+/contributions'. - The standard specifies that `/usr/include/asm' and `/usr/include/linux' should be symbolic links to subdirectories of `/usr/src/linux/include', but in this distribution the actual files are installed in `/usr/include'. This document contains instructions for moving the files to the standard location. See README.adapt. In the terms defined in the March 18 draft of the Linux file system standard, I believe that the MCC Interim version is `fully compatible' with the standard, and that only the absence of `/usr/dict/words' and the location of the files in `/usr/g++-include', `/usr/include/asm', and `/usr/include/linux' prevent it from being `fully compliant'. Other information about Linux ============================= The Linux Documentation Project has produced four largish volumes, which are available by anonymous ftp and in a commercially printed form. Newcomers should note particularly Linux Installation and Getting Started, by Matt Welsh. This contains a lot of useful information, as well as pointers to other sources of information. It is written in a clear but conversational style, and so may be particularly helpful to beginners. The book contains discussions of basic commands, including shell commands, pipes and redirection, file permissions, job control, the `vi' editor, shell scripts, system administration, and many other topics. It also contains a list of recommended books about Unix. The Linux System Administrator's Guide, by Lars Wirzenius, is also quite useful and informative. The present version is older than the Linux file system standard, and much information is missing or not yet written. These places are marked with the word `*META*' in bold type. But the booklet contains much useful information that is otherwise difficult to find. For these and other works from the Linux Documentation Project, see ftp.mcc.ac.uk in the directory `/pub/linux/fi.mirror/doc/doc-project'. Another source of information about Linux is the USENET news service, where there are a growing number of comp.os.linux groups. There are also several mailing lists related to Linux. For further information about mailing lists and USENET news groups which are relevant to Linux, see Linux Installation and Getting Started.