Mastodawn

Does computer #history interest you, or maybe you're just curious where well-known and well-used tools come from? I've just updated the History of #Unix #Manpages, https://manpages.bsd.lv/history.html, with the content you didn't know you wanted til this very moment. Learn about how the "man" program came to be, and just why are manpages styled like that? It includes snippets from Cynthia "Cindy" Livingston, who wrote the manpage language "mdoc"; John Eaton, who wrote the first GPL man tool; Doug McIlroy, who helped to divide manpages into sections; and more. Did you know that serving manpages online was part of one of the original http daemons? Or that an xman existed before X11R6, in X10? Enjoy!

History of Unix Manpages

intro 🐧🐡:freebsd:5d ago

Der Vortrag von Frank Hofmann beim #clt2026 bietet einen sehr schönen Einblick in die Möglichkeiten, sich im #linux System zurechtzufinden. Er zeigt, wie man sich in (s)einer #distro orientiert und welche Werkzeuge dabei helfen. Nicht nur Linux Einsteiger und di.day Durchstarter profitieren von diesem Vortrag auch Terminalfans kommen auf ihre Kosten.

#manpages #info #pinfo #diday #commandline

https://media.ccc.de/v/clt26-375-hilfe-sich-auf-einem-linux-system-zurechtfinden

Hilfe! Sich auf einem Linux-System zurechtfinden

media.ccc.de

GNU/Linux.ch Mar 23

Manpages: Struktur, Syntax und Verwendung

Eine kurze Einleitung in die Linux Manpages, sowie Tipps und Tricks, die ich auf dem Weg aufgegriffen habe.

#Linux #Administration #Manpages #Befehle #Shell #Linux

https://gnulinux.ch/manpages-struktur-syntax-und-verwendung

Manpages: Struktur, Syntax und Verwendung

Eine kurze Einleitung in die Linux Manpages, sowie Tipps und Tricks, die ich auf dem Weg aufgegriffen habe.

GNU/Linux.ch

N-gated Hacker News Mar 15

🤣 Oh, joy! Yet another groundbreaking revelation: people like *examples* in man pages. Who could have guessed? 🚀 Thank goodness someone finally added the most *basic* #examples to #tcpdump and #dig... because, you know, reading is hard. 📚🔍
https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/03/10/examples-for-the-tcpdump-and-dig-man-pages/ #manpages #programming #humor #HackerNews #ngated

Examples for the tcpdump and dig man pages

Julia Evans

Hacker News Mar 15

Examples for the tcpdump and dig man pages

https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/03/10/examples-for-the-tcpdump-and-dig-man-pages/

#HackerNews #tcpdump #dig #manpages #networking #examples #techblog

Examples for the tcpdump and dig man pages

Julia Evans

Mr Taps Mar 7

Do you want to write manpages but the strange manpage language is just too much? All mysterious looking ".Op Fl v Pf = Ar baz", whatever that means? This is your moment: lowdown v3.0.0, just released, has support to properly convert manpage-like Markdown to idiomatic mdoc.7 and man.7 output. It's described in https://kristaps.bsd.lv/lowdown/mdoc.html. Focus on your code, and let lowdown handle the docs. Full link: https://kristaps.bsd.lv/lowdown

(Salacious intro aside, this has been a long piece of development; and yes, it makes me a little sad, because mdoc.7 is a format I enjoy. But let's face it: sticking to mdoc.7 (or worse, man.7) is a losing battle. We can do better!) #unix #manpages

Lowdown Manpage Support

adingbatponder

👾Feb 22

Seems command-line interface tools #cli with good #manpages / help info are very powerful because automatic coding tools can easily interface with them & use them correctly, even without additional context. Interestingly, many machine-based coding assistants are extremely good at generating command-line oriented programs in the first place. Until now, I struggled to build solid GUIs, for example with #ratatui. Keeping software using the CLI - as well - seems to provide big automation advantages.

रञ्जित (Ranjit Mathew)Feb 21

💯!

“Notes On Clarifying Man Pages”, Julia Evans (https://jvns.ca/blog/2026/02/18/man-pages/).

On HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47065972

On Lobsters: https://lobste.rs/s/zpifkh/notes_on_clarifying_man_pages

#Unix #Linux #Manuals #ManPages #Documentation #Learning

Notes on clarifying man pages

Julia Evans

Show thread

Graham Perrin Feb 14

<https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#style> mentions the one-sentence-per-line rule for manual pages, however:

a) there's no such rule in mdoc(7) <https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mdoc&sektion=7&manpath=freebsd-current> or style.mdoc(5) <https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=style.mdoc&sektion=5&manpath=freebsd-current>; and

b) I frequently see multiple lines for a single sentence – is this simply because authors and reviewers happily ignore a rule?

A random pick, from a very recently changed page:

<https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/f2c2e5b0bf9def01b10651b9802fa38d07d9d265/share/man/man4/multicast.4#L163-L166>

– the longest line is 78 characters.

FreeBSD style aside, Debian man-pages(7) suggests a source code line length of no more than about 75 characters wherever possible: <https://manpages.debian.org/trixie/manpages/man-pages.7.en.html#Conventions_for_source_file_layout>.

#FreeBSD #documentation #manpages

freebsd-src/CONTRIBUTING.md at main · freebsd/freebsd-src

The FreeBSD src tree publish-only repository. Experimenting with 'simple' pull requests.... - freebsd/freebsd-src

GitHub

Tommi Nieminen Feb 6

Käyttääköhän kekään enää #Texinfo'a? Siis ainakaan alkuperäiseen tarkoitukseensa #man-sivuja laajempana järjestelmän ohjeistuksena? Enää #Debian'kaan ei tunnu asentavan infoa oletuksena, vaikka nimenomaan #GNU'n ohjelmissa joskus man-sivu on tynkä ja varsinainen tieto info-sivulla. #floss #linux #unix #manpages #infopages