On a Linux or Unix system, the man command is used to display the manual pages for various commands and utilities. Sometimes, different packages or software sources may install man pages with the same name, causing them to overlap.
To view overlapping man pages with the same name, you can use the whatis command to list the man pages that are available for a specific command or utility. For example:
whatis <command>
This will list the man pages that are available for the <command>, along with a short description of each man page.
For example, to list the man pages that are available for the ls command, you can use the following command:
whatis ls
This will list the man pages that are available for the ls command, along with a short description of each man page.
To view a specific man page, you can use the man command with the -a option and the section number of the man page. For example:
man -a <section> <command>
This will display the specified man page in the pager program, allowing you to view the man page one page at a time.
For example, to view the man page for the ls command in section 1, you can use the following command:
man -a 1 ls
This will display the man page for the ls command in section 1. You can use the space key to move to the next page and the q key to exit the pager program.
You can also use the man command with the -f option to display the short description of a man page. For example:
man -f <command>
This will display the short description of the man page for the <command>.
By using the whatis and man commands, you can view overlapping man pages with the same name and choose the man page that you want to view.