Chapter 13: Getting More Info (and Help!)

The previous chapters have provided a guide on how to use the graphical desktop of a typical Linux system. However, they have just scratched the surface of the features and functions of the Desktop environment and the applications therein. In this section we shall look at the resources available to a user to get more information and help.

Online Documentation

Much of the details on how to use and exploit further the software available is available as online documentation on the system itself. The online documentation is available in two types, the Help from the Main Menu and/or applications and the text-based Unix-style man and info commands.

Desktop Help

The Desktop Help can be invoked from the Main Menu,

Main Menu --> Help

Invoking this will display the screen below.

Fig. GNOME Help Screen

The Help content is divided into several main categories. So you will need to select the appropriate category to view the help content of interest. Most of the information on how to use the Desktop can be found from the Help here. For example, to view the help information on the File Manage, select,

Desktop --> Nautilus File Manager

Fig. File Manager Help Screen

Help Selection in Applications

Most of the Desktop applications have a Help button in their main menubar at the top. Selecting this will give you more information on how to use the application. The Help screen for the OpenOffice.org Writer application is displayed below.

Fig. OpenOffice.org Writer Help Screen

Man and Info Pages

As discussed in Chapter 11, from the command line interface using a Shell, it is possible to access a comprehensive help system on the commands available via the man and info commands. For example, to find out more on how to use the directory listing command, ls, open up a shell (see Chapter 11) and at the command prompt enter,

$ man ls

More detailed information on certain commands may be found using the info command, e.g.

$ info ls

To learn how to use the man and info commands, make use of these commands themselves e.g.

$ man info

$ man man

$ info info

$ info man

The Internet (WWW)

There is a lot of information available on the WWW on all the software available on the system. These may be classified broadly as follows:

Websites of specific software projects

Websites of specific Linux distributions and/or vendors

General Linux websites

General Open Source websites

Websites of Specific Software

Below are links to the websites of the software applications discussed in this guide.

GNOME – www.gnome.org

KDE – www.kde.org

The Freedesktop Project – www.freedesktop.org

OpenOffice.org – www.openoffice.org

Mozilla – www.mozilla.org

Ximian Evolution - www.novell.com/products/evolution/

gToaster – gnometoaster.rulez.org

Sane - www.sane-project.org

XSane – www.xsane.org

MPlayer - www.mplayerhq.hu

Xine – xinehq.de

XMMS - www.xmms.org

gThumb – gthumb.sourceforge.net

Linux Distributions and/or Vendors

Links to specific Linux distributions and vendors are listed below. In particular the website Distrowatch should be consulted for information and links to the hundreds of Linux distributions available today.

Fedora Linux – fedora.redhat.com

Debian Linux – www.debian.org

Slackware Linux – www.slackware.org

Redhat Linux – www.redhat.com

SuSE Linux – www.suse.com

Mandrake Linux – www.linux-mandrake.com

...

...

... many. many, many more

... (for links and information on many Linux and other OSS operating system distributions see the Distrowatch website below)

Distrowatch – www.distrowatch.org

General Linux Websites

Resources catering to new Linux users can be found in many of the website links below.

Linux Online – www.linux.org

Linux.com – www.linux.com

Linux.net – www.linux.net

Linux Headquarters – www.linuxhq.com

LinuxHQ.org – www.linuxhq.org

Linxu Today – www.linuxtoday.com

The Linux Documentation project – www.tldp.org

Linuxquestions.org - www.linuxquestions.org

The Linux Standard Base Project – www.linuxbase.org

Linux Journal – www.linuxjournal.com

Linux Gazette - www.linuxgazette.com

Linux Compatible - www.linuxcompatible.org

Free and Open Source Software Websites

In this section, general information on Open Source and Free Software may be obtained as well as news and updates.

The Open Source Initiative – www.opensource.org

The Free Software Foundation – www.fsf.org

Sourceforge – sourceforge.net

Freshmeat – freshmeat.net

Newsforge – www.newsforge.com

Open Source Development Network – www.osdn.com

Slashdot – slashdot.org

International Open Source Network – www.iosn.net

The Asian Open Source Centre – www.asiaosc.org

OSNews - www.osnews.com

2004-03-21T10:24:21