Re: Documentation on the command-line?

[Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com>]

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Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com> writes:
>
>> I'm trying to find the documentation of "fancyhdr",
>> part of "Texlive", and I've tried man fancyhdr, info
>> fancyhdr, show fancyhdr.
>>
>> but its failing on all of them.
>
> Yes :)
>
> man are the Unix manpages and they deal with Unix tools
> as well as Unix C programming because of their common
> history not to say symbiosis to this very day.
>
> info was the documentation project of the GNU people,
> it is hypertext just like the Internet (and the man
> pages, but the man much less so) - the interface of
> info is more bulky than the default for the man pages,
> which is why those are preferred by most (not all)
> people then and now. When the internet hit big, I would
> suspect some steam went of the info project.
>
> What is show?

That’s actually a 'bash-alias' I've set up and this is the line -
╭────
│alias show='apt-cache show'
╰────
which shows a very descriptive description of the programme, giving
package size, homepage, etc. 
>
> There is a man page for Emacs, and 'info emacs' gets
> you the Emacs FAQ. By the way, note how similar info
> looks to Emacs. As for man (as a tool), it is an
> interface to the pager less, I would think.
>
> As for packages, the kind you install on your computer,
> if you are on Debian or Ubuntu or some or their zillion
> forks, you can get an idea with 'aptitude show' - I
> wouldn't call this "documentation", though, but
> sometimes good URLs and the like can be found.

Sounds very similar to "apt-cache show".
>
>> So how do I get the documentation for an emacs or a
>> latex package to show on the command-line please?
>
> With Emacs stuff, there is no reason to use the shell
> for that, use the very elaborate
> online-and-dynamic-and-associated help system (not on
> paper, and immediately updated, and written next to the
> code it relates to). But don't you know that already?!
> If not, I have news for you :)
>
> describe-function
> describe-mode
> describe-variable
> etc. (For more: `C-h ?' for help-for-help)
>
> Or hit `C-h k' and then whatever key - cool, isn't it?

I've never had any success with `C-h k' or similar, so I tend to use
"F1 v/k/whatever" which gets the same result. 
>
> For LaTeX, there is something called "TeX by Topic" as
> well as the CLI tool tlmgr - go fish :)
>
Yes I am on Debian testing, and a quick play shows that 'tlmgr' does
work even though everything in 'tex-live' was installed using the Debian
package manager, in fact, there was a major upgrade this morning.

Thanks
Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
my git repo = https://bitbucket.org/boudiccas/dots
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian testing, fluxbox 1.3.5, emacs 24.3.92.1

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