Manpages that include a section full of the most common usage examples are the true MVP.
I really think
tldr
-esque snippets should be mandatory in manpages. Manpages are important documentation for when you already know how to use a program, but sometimes (always) I don’t have 30 minutes to read the entire manual to figure out how to start using a program. The ffmpeg man is practically a book! Meanwhiletldr
can give me exactly what I need to get started. If there’s notldr
and I can’t grep something out of the man, then I’m using a search engine.Isn’t that —help?
Not all programs have a --help, and --help doesn’t always give you clear examples of how to use something. For example, ffmpeg’s help gives a dump of all the options, and no examples of how you probably want to put them together.
Gotcha I’m still learning Linux, thanks for the clarification.
man -k
Keyword search. For when you can’t remember the name of the thing you forgot.apropos
is also helpful in that situation.
—help
you can always learn from
history
…Or tldr for those of us that are afraid of man
man touch
Lool