Linux Experts Read 'info' Pages (NOT 'man' pages)

pinfo is prettier than info
The only good info page I've seen was GNU bison where I learned that instead of $5 you can assign proper names eg $lhs. But then again, bison is rarelly used these days.

And nobody writes info pages these days. And previous days. I literally don't remember when I ever saw documentation of 3rd party app in info format. Man? yes. Markdown? Yes, so it can be rendered on github. Info? Nope.
Also on my system `info ed` gives "Info: (libc)Error Codes" which makes it less useful than man

i love info pages
i hate that (mostly) only GNU software has info pages

Here is the thing.... Man pages are best for programmers who need to know about different functions in the Linux programming interface. A lot of C functions will be perfectly documented in the man pages. If you've ever done any type of low level C programming, then you know how useful the man pages can be. Definitely not the only use for them tho...

Next time I see a guy shit on a noob (usually me) about the man pages I’m shitting back

I disliked info pages 20+ years ago, and I still dislike them now! Give me a trusty man page any day of the week. Man pages are usually present on pretty much all Unix descendants including the BSDs, and they should be included on Unix clones such as Linux, but many distributions don't include them.

Apparently Pandoc can convert Markdown formatted text documents to Texinfo formatted text documents (which the info command uses). I'll be adding that conversion in my project setup Makefile template.

Also have not heard of info pages in years of using Linux

However I do often use TLDR to quickly find common invocations of commands with more complex flags.

Another thing I will note is that --help usually also works on subcommands, which is something that surprisingly many people don't realize.

OpenBSD man pages are still the best tbh

It's worth knowing (I didn't know until I did a little googling inspired by this video) that KDE's Konqueror has a built-in info viewer if you want something presented like in a web browser.

linux has this way of always making you feel stupid. Man pages ? no, info pages. But not all the time, and there are exceptions and sometimes it's the opposite, and nobody will tell you how it really works, but will make you feel like you're dumb for not knowing... gotta love this. Now tell me that i'm dumb and the only person who feels this way.

You just added another rabbit hole for me to go down. Now I’m going to learn all the coreutils I don’t know by heart.

I know on FreeBSD, they tend to do a better job with the man pages as far as showing examples of how to use commands than Linux does.

I didn't know about the info pages. Thanks for the info!

How have I never heard of info? Crazy how you can always find something "new" lol

Related: If you struggle with both man and info pages, there is also tldr pages, which comes with great examples!

I /wish/ the man pages were a quick (but complete) reference, and info pages were the full docs... But alas, it isn't so...

the info command is not my favorite linux command. it does not support hjkl for navigation...

my favorite Linux command which ever I inputted into the keyboard pressed with bewildered keystrokes: 'mount man': "...All files accessible in a Unix system are arranged in one big tree, the file hierarchy, rooted at /."

This is how I actually learned the `sed` command. Also worth mentioning is that `info info` gives useful information on how to navigate through pages, you can even customize the interface and define your own key bindings.

I find it irritating that info command does not respect my $PAGER, and uses "more" by default, not "less".
On my Debian installation, info command was not installed!
I have used Linux for 15 years without even hearing about info command!

Either way, I think both man and info are becoming antiquated. Searching through long man/info page is not easy at all. I think we either need an inter-active command line UI with navigation and search, or a local web-based interface, or both.

Now we need a video on the info browser!

I had absolutely no idea that these existed, despite using these systems for almost a decade. There's an XKCD comic about that.

I think (purely from looking at your video views) that your Linux videos do better than your other content. Keep it up! But focus on your niche

I use Arch by the way

today i learn something, tq

important to note is that man and man pages are posix, and info isn't. some of my systems don't even have info pages installed

This is my favourite command 😊

I use man pages because I'm a man.
Jokes aside, I usually use --help because I need help.

I didn't quite know that info would fall through to man, but yes these are very helpful

you'd be surprised to understand how many package managers, distributions and mostly users manage to F up MANPATH, INFOPATH or the configuration thereof. it's crazy.

+RTFM+ ... no, instead RTFS: Read The F-ing Source.

Somebody should just rewrite the entire man and info pages from scratch without any legacy functionality and fix all of these mistakes. It would be awesome

And there's the `tldr` pages nowadays too (very user-friendly, IMO) - it likely won't come with your distro though.

I check tldr pages

if it can't be explained with tldr, i quit

man pages existed... Gnu people decided they wanted new-fangled ´hyperlinks´ so they created a new format: info pages... I think Gnu´s intent was to replace man pages, but that never happenned. It should be noted that man pages are supposed to be for reference, like dictionary information about the commands. Full-fledged examples were supposed to go into ¨guides¨ ... documentation that was originally on paper, and I do not recall seeing electronic versions of.... info pages don´t have this restriction, and can contain reference or guide materials... which is why they tend to be more helpful.

Ahh info pages. The clunkiest navigation system ever.

The video title almost had me thinking you were a feminist.

Here's your new favorite command: update-info-dir
Packages should run install-info post install.

Please show how to write info pages by yourself! Also is there something similar on Windows?

Those are Linux snobs, who yell on people to leave linux and go back to Proprietary OS.
Actually, these snobs are The obstacle in Linux's spread.

@Robert...how to read about the options that comes after the `help` command like exec,echo,fg,unset,unset, trap.
And also I have used pipefail in my scripts, but how to read about it from the man or info like pages ?

The problem with the linux-way in general is that you should KNOW exactly what command you need and that it exists at all to start exploring what it can do and how.

At least on arch you can get the docs for a bash shell builtin using the help command (e.g. help alias)

and dont forget "whatis" command

okay maybe not hang on

you need to read a manual to use copy and paste on linux? lol

I love the entertaining criticisms of the Linux man pages😂

Read the man Page 😂

Huh, info is not a thing on arch it seems, but then again most of the time I go for less info with tldr...

Extremely good video, cheers!!!

Very useful, thanks for sharing. I noticed two examples ... there is no man page for 'man coreutils' ... but 'info coreutils' supplies loads of information. Also 'info builtin' simply supplies what is available in 'man builtin'