I am sure there is the odd man page which is not that good particularly when they wish one to use the info system but in general man pages are very concise indepth instructions covering the application it is written for. Most newbies find them difficult because they don't usually waste time with verbose bull shit but cover the points and that's it. Once a person gets comfortible reading them one never wants to read more verbose documents in my opinion. As for comparing documentation between any un*x system with microsoft products there is no contest Microsoft specializes in writing pages and pages without saying anything. Just trying to get the meaning of an error message in pretty well any Windows app is almost impossible. Everything in a Un*x/linux system is documented and if all fails there's always the code to look at for definitive answers. Sometimes one needs to do some digging to find the exact documentation but that's what google and other search facilities are for. It seems to me that folks often just rather ask a question than to both learning how to find answers for themselves. Trust me though it is much more gratifying to hunt down an answer and learn all the extra stuff you find while taking the journey. There are of course times when a person needs to ask questions or find answers that others have asked in the passed and that is what mailing list archives and usenet groups are about but finding a keystroke for example is much easier just looking at the apps configuration mechanism. The term RTFM came out of frustration from people having to answer the same questions over and over and so the answers are placed in man pages and FAQs. Kirk -- Kirk Reiser The Computer Braille Facility e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca University of Western Ontario phone: (519) 661-3061
