Using the Texinfo System

GNU software often only comes with a minimal set of manual pages, and the largest part of the documentation is available in the hypertext-based 'texinfo' format. While this format is designed to be printed (via TeX) as well as read online, we'll concentrate on the online versions here.

Start "info" to get a directory of available documentation. Navigation is by moving the cursor up/down to get to a topic, which is then selected with the RETURN key. To go to the next/previous node, press the 'n'/'p' key, to scroll down a page press the SPACE key. Press '?' for a more in-depth online help.

Info Pages Available in NetBSD 1.5

Here's a list of documentation that's available with NetBSD 1.5 and that can be read via the 'info' reader:

Heimdal:

This contains documentation on the KTH Kerberos 5 implementation. Includes an overview of what Kerberos is, how to set up a realm and also how to interoperate with Windows 2000.

Kth-krb:

The KTH folks' Kerberos 4 implementation, which also includes an overview and setup, plus goes into frequent problems and one-time passwords.

Am-Utils:

Documentation for the 'amd' automounter, that can mount NFS, CDROM and other filesystems on first access. The documentation talks about the components involved and supported filesystem types, then talks about the config files and utilities for runtime administration.

as, BFD, binutils, ld, stabs:

These pages describes the non-compiler end of the GNU toolchain used by NetBSD in all it's gory details. Starting from the assembler's input format, output format, library handling, linking and manipulation of binary object files are documented as well as the format of object files and debug code. Only for the very tough ones!

gdb:

The GNU debugger is used on NetBSD for post-mortem debugging of programs as well as kernels plus debugging of running programs. It allows monitoring variables, processes, and a whole lot more. Make sure you know how to use this tool if you intend to program in C or C++.

UUCP:

Unix-to-Unix-Copy is from the times when data like mail and usenet news was moved between machines via store-and-forward, i.e. when leased lines were too expensive, and times for long distance calls had to be kept low. UUCP is still in use in some cases today, but it's rapidly superseded by "modern" Internet protocols.

dc:

This info page describes the 'dc' reverse-polish desk calculator which supports arbitrary precision arithmetic. If expr(1) is not good enough, try this one!

diffutils:

The GNU diffutils as distributed in NetBSD include diff, diff3 and sdiff. If you want to find the differences between two or more files, you might want to have a look here.

gprof:

The documentation for the GNU profiling program tells you how to collect data on runtime performance of a program or kernel, and how to analyze the data to find problems.

grep:

Get/Regular Expression/Print was one of the most used commands in ex(1). The 'search text' facility became so popular that it was split out in an extra program - grep. Learn everything about the program, it's options, error messages and regular expression ('text wildcards') in this info page. One of the must-know's in Unix!

iostat:

This info page documents the C++ IOstream library. It focuses on available operators and streams, manipulation of file contents and strings as well as associating strings with streams.

send-pr:

The send-pr(1) tools is used by NetBSD and other operating systems to report problems (hence the name :-). If the on-screen instructions that pop up in your editor of choice aren't sufficient, you can find full instructions on how to operate send-pr(1) here.

cpp, g++, g77, gcc:

After as, ln and binutils, these pages describe the compilers of the toolchain used by NetBSD. Included programs are the C preprocessor (which is also used for C++ and some other applications), the C++, Fortran and C compiler. All the options are documented in much detail here. A must for serious Open Source programmers!

gawk:

NetBSD still uses the GNU implementation of the awk programming/scripting language. Being a mixture somewhere between /bin/sh, sed and perl, you can learn all about one of Unix' first scripting languages here.

info, install-info, texi2dvi, texindex, makeinfo, info-stnd:

Documentation on the texinfo documentation system itself. Describes how to get started, using the standalone 'info' program, how to write your own documentation in texinfo format so it can be formatted for printing via TeX, of for online-consumption via 'info', and more.

More Info

Note that if you install third party programs via pkgsrc or pkg_add(8) that come with their own info pages, they will be listed too. The above is just what is shipped with NetBSD 1.5 in the /usr/share/info directory.