- Appendix A. Welcome to the Command Line
- Starting Up the Terminal
- Moving Around the Filesystem
- Manipulating Files and Folders
- System Information Commands
- Searching and Editing Text Files
- Dealing with Users and Groups
- Getting Help on the Command Line
- Searching for Man Files
- Using Wildcards
- Executing Multiple Commands
- Moving to More Advanced Uses of the Command Line
Getting Help on the Command Line
This section provides you with some tips for getting help on the command line. The commands --help and man are the two most important tools at the command line.
Virtually all commands understand the -h (or --help) option, which produces a short usage description of the command and its options, then exits back to the command prompt. Try man -h or man --help to see this in action.
Every command and nearly every application in Linux has a man (manual) file, so finding such a file is as simple as typing man command to bring up a longer manual entry for the specified command. For example, man mv brings up the mv (move) manual.
Some helpful tips for using the man command include the following.
- Arrow keys: Move up and down the man file by using the arrow keys.
- q: Quit back to the command prompt by typing q.
- man man: man man brings up the manual entry for the man command, which is a good place to start!
- man intro: man intro is especially useful. It displays the Introduction to User Commands, which is a well-written, fairly brief introduction to the Linux command line.
There are also info pages, which are generally more in-depth than man pages. Try info info for the introduction to info pages.