Debian Help System

Jonathan Eisenstein

jeisen@users.sourceforge.net
 

Jesse Goerz

jwgoerz@users.sourceforge.net
         

This document is intended to help Debian newbies learn about ways in which they can find information to solve problems they have while using Debian GNU/Linux. Copyright © 2001, Jesse Goerz, NewbieDoc project. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found at the Free Software Foundation.

Many thanks to Brian Potkin for his direct and accurate information about /usr/share/doc, man pages, and my error on what package zless belonged to. I would also like to thank Wayne Topa for his excellent contribution for using xman and his advice on the use of the mailing lists.


Revision History
Revision v2.17 April 2002Revised by: jee
A few minor corrections in layout after seeing the built HTML.
Revision v2.07 April 2002Revised by: jee
Pegged for release. After a major rewrite, and to match the CVS, it's now v2.0.
Revision v1.05 April 2002Revised by: jee
Checked and revised by project editor. Lots of stuff moved around. A lot of text added.
Revision v0.329 September 2001Revised by: jwg
Added info pages.
Revision v0.24 May 2001Revised by: jwg
Added /usr/doc/*, xman, more info on using mailing lists, correction on zless reference, and minor corrections to info gathering progs.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. What's Installed?
2.1. /usr/share/doc/*
2.2. /usr/doc/*
3. The Online Manual
3.1. The Manual
3.2. Man Page Layout
3.3. xman
4. Info Pages
4.1. What are Info Pages?
4.2. Using Info Pages
4.3. xinfo
5. Other Help Commands
5.1. apropos
5.2. Using dpkg to find information
6. Online resources
6.1. Debian home page
6.2. Debian mailing lists
6.3. Debian GNU/Linux FAQ
6.4. Finding packages
6.5. Debian documentation project
6.6. NewbieDoc Project
7. Information gathering programs
7.1. Using a terminal
7.2. plog
7.3. /var/log/syslog
7.4. tcpdump
7.5. dump
7.6. lspci