The only issue with man pages is that it often doesn’t cover common use cases. I know info pages often have that kind of information, but it’s hit or miss it they exist.
Would be nice if more man pages were like the OpenBSD ones, since they actually do that pretty consistently, in my experience. Probably what I would go with if I needed to install something on a computer I would be locked up with somehow, without internet access.
Unfortunately, as I recall, there are occasional differences in how their version of commands work, versus the same command in Linux. For one example, look at the difference in the man pages for ifconfig between Arch Linux and OpenBSD.
Indeed, only cases I see RTFM are stuff such as: how do I use the cut command to get columns 3 and 5 in a semicolon divided document?
And even then there’s generally someone explaining.
Now, regarding the quality of man pages… In maby cases it feels they were written in the 80s by someone who had to ship them as soon as possible and nobody ever improved them.
Some commands are very well explained with examples and such, some have the options clearly explained, many just have the list of options without clarifying what the option is for.
Last time I ever saw an RTFM was when someone has gone into something that’s way over their head to a point where it would have taken weeks to guide them to even get the relevant info to guide them what they need to do
Don’t fuck it up, linux people.
Remember, if you are tempted to say “rtfm”, it’s probably because you’re a cunt.
Make everything easy to understand, in as many places as possible.
It’s been years since I’ve seen that written anywhere
I only see it used as irony
Or baseless complaints like above
RTFM comments are probably mostly about using the terminal, which is a good thing, since man pages explain most of the things pretty good.
The only issue with man pages is that it often doesn’t cover common use cases. I know info pages often have that kind of information, but it’s hit or miss it they exist.
Try tldr pages, they’re in most repositories nowadays
Hadn’t heard of those before. I’ll give them a looksie
Would be nice if more man pages were like the OpenBSD ones, since they actually do that pretty consistently, in my experience. Probably what I would go with if I needed to install something on a computer I would be locked up with somehow, without internet access.
Unfortunately, as I recall, there are occasional differences in how their version of commands work, versus the same command in Linux. For one example, look at the difference in the man pages for ifconfig between Arch Linux and OpenBSD.
Indeed, only cases I see RTFM are stuff such as: how do I use the cut command to get columns 3 and 5 in a semicolon divided document? And even then there’s generally someone explaining.
Now, regarding the quality of man pages… In maby cases it feels they were written in the 80s by someone who had to ship them as soon as possible and nobody ever improved them. Some commands are very well explained with examples and such, some have the options clearly explained, many just have the list of options without clarifying what the option is for.
Last time I ever saw an RTFM was when someone has gone into something that’s way over their head to a point where it would have taken weeks to guide them to even get the relevant info to guide them what they need to do