4 ms·

Man pages are divided into sections as follows (GNU & Linux): 0 Header files (usually found in /usr/include) 1 Executable programs or shell commands

by nieve 4y ago

Man pages are divided into sections as follows (GNU & Linux): 0 Header files (usually found in /usr/include) 1 Executable programs or shell commands 2 System calls (functions provided by the kernel) 3 Library calls (functions within program libraries) 4 Special files (usually found in /dev) 5 File formats and conventions, e.g. /etc/passwd 6 Games 7 Miscellaneous (including macro packages and conventions), e.g. man(7), groff(7) 8 System administration commands (usually only for root) 9 Kernel routines [Non standard]

Arnavion 4y ago
As explained in `man man`, of course.
- Maursault 4y ago
  - masklinn 4y ago
    Er… what? GP’s comment should apply to most if not all systems with a few caveats / divergences. FreeBSD certainly mentions and lists standard sections at the top of `man man`. OpenBSD mentions the concept of categories / sections early on, though it only lists the specific section when it comes around to documenting the corresponding filter. GNU invented info(1), not man(1).
    - Maursault 4y ago
      It is just a pet peeve of mine that a lot of younger pros and devs talk about Linux as though it were groundbreaking, when all of GNU/Linux is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the actual earth-shaking developments, SysV (arbitrary) and BSD. Everything in Linux was there before Linux was a twinkle in Linus' eye. I remember when most webservers ran NetBSD, and 5 years later Linux took over the data center. Was NetBSD really so intolerable and Linux really that superior? No, its just that with no memory of the past, one can't know any better. Linux really brought nothing new, no new advances, nothing that wasn't there before, and yet it took over like a jihad. That isn't accurate... not like a jihad... it was a jihad. We can thank fanaticism for Linux in the datacenter. I'm not unfaithful, just system-agnostic. Linux was a solution to a problem already solved many times. And since Linux is not original, it sort of gets under my skin when it is insinuated as such. When talking about any software, one should refer to its original development. When we talk about web browsers, we don't talk as though, say, Microsoft invented the web browser, just because it has one; instead we talk about Tim Berners-Lee, not a copy of a copy of a copy of his work.
      - teddyh 4y ago
        What NetBSD did not have was drivers for any old commodity PC hardware which everyone had laying around. That’s it. That’s why people ran Linux on their stuff, and then continued running Linux in the data center.
      - seedie 4y ago
        386BSD the predecessor of Net/Free/OpenBSD was published under a BSD license in 1992. 6 months after Linus posted his kernel sources on usenet. It was free and open source and no later than the "free" BSDs that are still available today. I'd say that is a reason why it is successful. Edit: "free" in quotatio marks to not confuse with FreeBSD.
        hnlmorg 4y ago
        Not to mention the GNU project had been around for nearly a decade previous
      - mdp2021 4y ago
        > We can thank fanaticism for Linux in the datacenter. I'm not unfaithful, just system-agnostic. Linux was a solution to a problem already solved many times And outside the datacenter? Was the problem of an Open Common Desktop OS - for those people who are radically *not* system-agnostic - solved at the time? What could have been the effects on the trends building the scenario until today and beyond, had Linux not appeared but keeping the rest of the chessboard intact?
      - xorcist 4y ago
        The main reason Linux outcompeted the BSD-descendants is the GPL license. Instead of competing with proprietary extensions on a free base, fragmenting the ecosystem, upstreaming as much work as possible makes economic sense. We can still observe that effect in the Android ecosystem which started out really bad and fragmented and slowly drifts into a more coherent whole, instead of the other way around. Many saw what the UNIX war led to and tended to avoid similar situations. I too liked what the BSD homogenous distribution let to on a technical basis, but the GPL makes sense as long as business cases can be made fit.

by nieve 4y ago

Arnavion 4y ago

As explained in `man man`, of course.

Maursault 4y ago
- masklinn 4y ago
  Er… what? GP’s comment should apply to most if not all systems with a few caveats / divergences. FreeBSD certainly mentions and lists standard sections at the top of `man man`. OpenBSD mentions the concept of categories / sections early on, though it only lists the specific section when it comes around to documenting the corresponding filter. GNU invented info(1), not man(1).
  - Maursault 4y ago
    It is just a pet peeve of mine that a lot of younger pros and devs talk about Linux as though it were groundbreaking, when all of GNU/Linux is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of the actual earth-shaking developments, SysV (arbitrary) and BSD. Everything in Linux was there before Linux was a twinkle in Linus' eye. I remember when most webservers ran NetBSD, and 5 years later Linux took over the data center. Was NetBSD really so intolerable and Linux really that superior? No, its just that with no memory of the past, one can't know any better. Linux really brought nothing new, no new advances, nothing that wasn't there before, and yet it took over like a jihad. That isn't accurate... not like a jihad... it was a jihad. We can thank fanaticism for Linux in the datacenter. I'm not unfaithful, just system-agnostic. Linux was a solution to a problem already solved many times. And since Linux is not original, it sort of gets under my skin when it is insinuated as such. When talking about any software, one should refer to its original development. When we talk about web browsers, we don't talk as though, say, Microsoft invented the web browser, just because it has one; instead we talk about Tim Berners-Lee, not a copy of a copy of a copy of his work.
    - teddyh 4y ago
      What NetBSD did not have was drivers for any old commodity PC hardware which everyone had laying around. That’s it. That’s why people ran Linux on their stuff, and then continued running Linux in the data center.
    - seedie 4y ago
      386BSD the predecessor of Net/Free/OpenBSD was published under a BSD license in 1992. 6 months after Linus posted his kernel sources on usenet. It was free and open source and no later than the "free" BSDs that are still available today. I'd say that is a reason why it is successful. Edit: "free" in quotatio marks to not confuse with FreeBSD.
      - hnlmorg 4y ago
        Not to mention the GNU project had been around for nearly a decade previous
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      > We can thank fanaticism for Linux in the datacenter. I'm not unfaithful, just system-agnostic. Linux was a solution to a problem already solved many times And outside the datacenter? Was the problem of an Open Common Desktop OS - for those people who are radically *not* system-agnostic - solved at the time? What could have been the effects on the trends building the scenario until today and beyond, had Linux not appeared but keeping the rest of the chessboard intact?
    - xorcist 4y ago
      The main reason Linux outcompeted the BSD-descendants is the GPL license. Instead of competing with proprietary extensions on a free base, fragmenting the ecosystem, upstreaming as much work as possible makes economic sense. We can still observe that effect in the Android ecosystem which started out really bad and fragmented and slowly drifts into a more coherent whole, instead of the other way around. Many saw what the UNIX war led to and tended to avoid similar situations. I too liked what the BSD homogenous distribution let to on a technical basis, but the GPL makes sense as long as business cases can be made fit.