Learning Commands

Command Manuals

Linux has two ways that we can learn more about a command within the terminal. The first is using manual pages, man. These contain all of the information that you will need to effectively use any command.

% man vim

VIM(1)                            General Commands Manual                           VIM(1)

NAME
       vim - Vi IMproved, a programmer's text editor

SYNOPSIS
       vim [options] [file ..]
       vim [options] -
       vim [options] -t tag
       vim [options] -q [errorfile]

       ex
       view
       gvim gview evim eview
       rvim rview rgvim rgview

DESCRIPTION
       Vim is a text editor that is upwards compatible to Vi.  It can be used to edit all
       kinds of plain text.  It is especially useful for editing programs.

       There are a lot of enhancements above Vi: multi level undo, multi windows and
       buffers, syntax highlighting, command line editing, filename completion, on-line
       help, visual selection, etc..  See ":help vi_diff.txt" for a summary of the
       differences between Vim and Vi.

       While running Vim a lot of help can be obtained from the on-line help system, with
       the ":help" command.  See the ON-LINE HELP section below.
       ...

The other method is to use the --help flag after the command.

% vim --help

VIM - Vi IMproved 8.2 (2019 Dec 12, compiled Feb 12 2022 04:26:50)

Usage: vim [arguments] [file ..]       edit specified file(s)
   or: vim [arguments] -               read text from stdin
   or: vim [arguments] -t tag          edit file where tag is defined
   or: vim [arguments] -q [errorfile]  edit file with first error

Arguments:
   --           Only file names after this
   -v           Vi mode (like "vi")
   -e           Ex mode (like "ex")
   -E           Improved Ex mode
   -s           Silent (batch) mode (only for "ex")
   -d           Diff mode (like "vimdiff")
   -y           Easy mode (like "evim", modeless)
   -R           Readonly mode (like "view")
...

Useful Commands Not Discussed In These Guidelines

Command	Use
rsync	Copy files and directories between machines using ssh
ps	List processes running
kill	Stop process running
head	Display top x lines of file, 10 by default
tail	Display bottom x lines of file
where	List the path to command's location
whichis	If multiple versions, list all their paths
apropos	Searches man pages by keyword, useful to find new commands