The traditional directory to find documentation on your installed Linux system is /usr/share/doc. Usually, the directory contains information about the packages installed on your system, plus release notes, manuals, and more.

Note: Contents Depends on Installed Packages

In the Linux world, many manuals and other kinds of documentation are available in the form of packages, like software. How much and which information you find in /usr/share/docs also depends on the (documentation) packages installed. If you cannot find the subdirectories mentioned here, check if the respective packages are installed on your system and add them with YaST, if needed.

Man pages are an essential part of any Linux system. They explain the usage of a command and all available options and parameters. Man pages can be accessed with man followed by the name of the command, for example, man ls.

Man pages are displayed directly in the shell. To navigate them, move up and down with Page ↑ and Page ↓. Move between the beginning and the end of a document with Home and End. End this viewing mode by pressing Q. Learn more about the man command itself with man man. Man pages are sorted in categories as shown in Table 15.1, “Man Pages—Categories and Descriptions” (taken from the man page for man itself).

Each man page consists of several parts labeled NAME , SYNOPSIS , DESCRIPTION , SEE ALSO , LICENSING , and AUTHOR . There may be additional sections available depending on the type of command.

Info pages are another important source of information on your system. Usually, they are more detailed than man pages. They consist of more than command line options and contain sometimes whole tutorials or reference documentation. To view the info page for a certain command, enter info followed by the name of the command, for example, info ls. You can browse an info page with a viewer directly in the shell and display the different sections, called “nodes”. Use Space to move forward and <— to move backward. Within a node, you can also browse with Page ↑ and Page ↓ but only Space and <— will take you also to the previous or subsequent node. Press Q to end the viewing mode. Not every command comes with an info page and vice versa.

In addition to the online versions of the SUSE manuals installed under /usr/share/doc, you can also access the product-specific manuals and documentation on the Web. For an overview of all documentation available for openSUSE Leap check out your product-specific documentation Web page at http://www.suse.com/doc/.

If you are searching for additional product-related information, you can also refer to the following Web sites:

You can also try general-purpose search engines. For example, use the search terms Linux CD-RW help or OpenOffice file conversion problem if you have trouble with burning CDs or LibreOffice file conversion.