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whatis – Display A Very Brief Description Of A Command
The whatis program displays the name and a one line description of a man page match- ing a specified keyword:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ whatis ls
ls (1) - list directory contents
[me@linuxbox ~]$ whatis ls
ls (1) - list directory contents
The Most Brutal Man Page Of Them All
As we have seen, the manual pages supplied with Linux and other Unix-like sys- tems are intended as reference documentation and not as tutorials. Many man pages are hard to read, but I think that the grand prize for difficulty has got to go to the man page for bash. As I was doing my research for this book, I gave it careful review to ensure that I was covering most of its topics. When printed, it's over 80 pages long and extremely dense, and its structure makes absolutely no sense to a new user.
On the other hand, it is very accurate and concise, as well as being extremely complete. So check it out if you dare and look forward to the day when you can read it and it all makes sense.