Chris G wrote: > > OK, maybe, but it would be *much* more useful if one was pointed at > some information about the thing in question, e.g. 'man -k yelp' tells > me:- > > yelp (rpm) - A system documentation reader from the Gnome project > > but doesn't give me a clue as to how to find out anything else. The > whole point of 'man -k' or 'apropos' is surely to point at the place > where you can find out more about they keyword you have entered. > Sure it provides a clue - not much more then a clue, but none of the entries produces by man -k give you more then a clue. For example, xlsclients (1x) - list client applications running on a display does not tell you to run man xlsclients. For some searches, you will get more then one result. You are expected to know how to view the reverent one(s). Try running "apropos printf" for example. Do you want the shell builtin, the command, or the C command? Do you want the 1 or 1p version? Few cli programs lead you by the hand. There is a certain amount of knowledge expected of people using the cli - that is why the learning curve is rather high. When I see (rpm) instead of (n), I know I can get more information using rpm instead of man. For example, running "rpm -qi yelp" will usually get you a longer description of yelp. Running "rpm -qd yelp" will produce a list of the doc files. Now, it would be nice if the man page for apropos was updated to include a description of what (rpm) means, and how to use rpm to get more information. Having a man page for every command would be even better. Having complete documentation in /usr/share/doc/<package> would also be nice. But most programmers do not like to write documentation, and even when they do it isn't always understandable by non-programmers. Because of this, people that understand the programs, and have the skill to write understandable documentation are needed. But they need to meet both requirements. Incorrect documentation is worth then no documentation. You have to make sure you understand the program before trying to write documentation for it. (I have written man pages and others with better writing skills have improved them.) Mikkel -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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