catman - create or update the pre-formatted manual pages
catman [-d?V] [-M path] [-C file] [section] ...
catman is used to create an up to date set of pre-formatted manual pages known as cat pages. Cat pages are generally much faster to display than the original manual pages, but require extra storage space. The decision to support cat pages is that of the local administrator, who must provide suitable directories to contain them. The options available to catman are the manual page hierarchies and sections to pre-format. The default hierarchies are those specified as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file, and the default sections are either the colon-delimited contents of the environment variable $MANSECT or the standard set compiled into man if $MANSECT is undefined. Supplying catman with a set of whitespace-delimited section names will override both of the above. catman makes use of the index database cache associated with each hierarchy to determine which files need to be formatted.
-d, --debug Print debugging information. -M path, --manpath=path Specify an alternate colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path. By default, this is all paths indicated as system hierarchies in the man-db configuration file. -C file, --config-file=file Use this user configuration file rather than the default of ~/.manpath. -?, --help Print a help message and exit. --usage Print a short usage message and exit. -V, --version Display version information.
MANSECT If $MANSECT is set, its value is a colon-delimited list of sections and it is used to determine which manual sections to search and in what order. The default is "1 n l 8 3 2 3posix 3pm 3perl 3am 5 4 9 6 7", unless overridden by the SECTION directive in /etc/manpath.config. MANPATH If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon- delimited manual page hierarchy search path to use.
/etc/manpath.config man-db configuration file. /usr/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag) A traditional global index database cache. /var/catman/index.(bt|db|dir|pag) An alternate or FSSTND compliant global index database cache.
man(1), manpath(5), mandb(8)
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk). Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org). Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).
Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.
Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.
Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.
Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.
The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.
Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.
Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.
Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.