From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 7785 invoked by alias); 25 Jul 2002 02:50:29 -0000 Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help@cygwin.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com Mail-Followup-To: cygwin@cygwin.com Received: (qmail 7777 invoked from network); 25 Jul 2002 02:50:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO main.gmane.org) (80.91.224.249) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 25 Jul 2002 02:50:28 -0000 Received: from root by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17XYhb-0001PS-00 for ; Thu, 25 Jul 2002 04:50:07 +0200 To: cygwin@cygwin.com X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Received: from news by main.gmane.org with local (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17XJao-0004UO-00 for ; Wed, 24 Jul 2002 12:42:06 +0200 Path: not-for-mail From: "Robert Aldwinckle" Newsgroups: gmane.os.cygwin Subject: Re: Documentation improvements Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2002 05:38:00 -0000 Message-ID: References: <049201c231c0$3af5e2f0$a352a518@samsystem> NNTP-Posting-Host: ip48.ts17-1.mn.dialup.ottawa.cyberus.ca X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1027507326 17250 209.195.66.48 (24 Jul 2002 10:42:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 10:42:06 +0000 (UTC) X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 X-SW-Source: 2002-07/txt/msg01985.txt.bz2 "Samuel" wrote in message news:049201c231c0$3af5e2f0$a352a518@samsystem... > I am a newbie but my first message to the mailing list was not ignored. What > does that mean? I don't know. > > In my first message I said: "I am new to this mailing list and to Cygwin. I > also have not used Unix for over a decade. I am familiar with C and C++ and > I have been using Visual C++ > since the first version." ... If another newbie's perspective is of any use I can tell you a few more things that I have discovered to help orient yourself with the package: whatis and apropos are two related commands which seem to interrogate a partial concordance of the documentation. I'm still looking for a way to make the results more complete. The first time I installed CygWin man did not work. I can't remember the exact symptoms. I waited for a new version and reinstalled and then it started working. Not all functions have man pages. Info is another documentation tool. Only a few packages seem to use it. Another way to get oriented heretical as it may sound is to use Windows Explorer and its Find tool. For example press F3 while open at the CygWin root and enter *.htm and you will see that other packages are documented as sets of browser pages. Evidently we have to get used to inconsistency. Vim and emacs are installed as editors. I don't know--trying to get familiar with all those keystrokes seems more effort than is worthwhile. The idea of being able to integrate them eventually with shell functions though seems to be my incentive for keeping at it. I don't have a programmable editor on Windows so I do far too much data analysis with shell commands. Less is the alternative to More that you need to get used to. More is referenced by the Less Man page but is not found. I can't remember what tweaked me to using less. It may have been from trawling through the FAQ but as I recall I didn't find that as useful for getting familiar with the default install as I might have expected. HTH Robert Aldwinckle --- -- Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple Bug reporting: http://cygwin.com/bugs.html Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/