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Command Line
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Guided Lab Read the Manual with man
60:00
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Introduction
man shows the full manual for a command. It opens in a pager that works like less: Space, b, / to search, n for the next match, and q to quit.
This lab is the hands-on companion to the man lesson from Linux Journey (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Open a Manual Page
man ls
Skim the NAME, SYNOPSIS and DESCRIPTION sections, then press q.
Search for an Answer
Which ls option sorts by file size, largest first? Open man ls, type /size and press Enter, then n until you find it.
Save the option (for example -x) in answer.txt:
echo "-x" > answer.txt
Manual Sections
The same name can appear in several sections: 1 is commands, 5 is file formats, 8 is admin commands. passwd is both a command and a file:
man 1 passwd
man 5 passwd
Summary
man command opens its manual; it pages like less.
/word searches inside a manual page.
man 5 name picks a section when a name appears in several.