Linux / UNIX: Getting help with man pages and how to use them

In Linux and Unix-like operating systems, the man (manual) command is used to display the manual pages for various commands and programs. Manual pages contain detailed information about the usage and options of a command or program, as well as examples and descriptions of the command's arguments and return values.

To use the man command, simply type man followed by the name of the command or program you want to display the manual page for. For example:

man ls

This will display the manual page for the ls command, which is used to list the contents of a directory.

To navigate the manual page, you can use the arrow keys or the h, j, k, and l keys to move up, down, left, and right, respectively. You can also use the / key to search for a specific word or phrase within the manual page.

To exit the manual page, press q.

In addition to the manual pages, you can also use the --help option with many commands to display a brief summary of the command's usage and options. For example:

ls --help

This will display a summary of the ls command's usage and options, like this:

Usage: ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...
List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).
Sort entries alphabetically if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.

Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
  -a, --all                  do not ignore entries starting with .
  -A, --almost-all           do not list implied . and ..
      --author               with -l, print the author of each file
  -b, --escape               print C-style escapes for nongraphic characters
      --block-size=SIZE      scale sizes by SIZE before printing them; e.g.,
                               '--block-size=M' prints sizes in units of
                               1,048,576 bytes; see SIZE format below
  -B, --ignore-backups       do not list implied entries ending with ~
  -c                         with -lt: sort by, and show, ctime (time of last
                               modification of file status information);
                               with -l: show ctime and sort by name;
                               otherwise: sort by ctime, newest first
  -C                         list entries by columns
      --color[=WHEN]         control whether color is used to distinguish file
                               types; WHEN may be 'always', 'never', or 'auto'
  -d, --directory            list directories themselves, not their contents
  -D, --dired                generate output designed for Emacs' dired mode
  -f                         do not sort, enable -aU, disable -ls --color
  -F, --classify             append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries
      --file-type            likewise, except do not append '*'
      --format=WORD          across -x, commas -m, horizontal -x, long -l,
                               single-column -1, verbose -l, vertical -C
      --full-time            like -l --time-style=full-iso
  -g                         like -l, but do not list owner
      --group-directories-first
                             group directories before files;