Apropos

APROPOS

Because Linux knows so many commands you can impossibly remember them all, that is why there are a few tricks available to help you.
We already know from previous tips that if you type the first few characters of a command and press the <tab> key, it will autocomplete the command or give a list of options.
Also we had the whatis command a few tips ago this showed a line of text explaining what a command was for.

Here is another clever command: “apropos”. Imagine you know only a part of the name or description of a command, let's take an example like “alsa”:

CODE

$ apropos alsa

Returns to the screen:

QUOTE (Text @ Screen)

aconnect (1) - ALSA sequencer connection manager
alsaconf    (8) - configuration tool for the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture
alsactl (1) - advanced controls for ALSA soundcard driver
alsamixer (1) - soundcard mixer for ALSA soundcard driver, with ncurses interface
alsaplayer (1) - plays various sound files
amixer    (1) - command-line mixer for ALSA soundcard driver
aplay       (1) - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA soundcard driver
aplay [arecord] (1) - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA soundcard driver
arecord (1) - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA soundcard driver
arecord [aplay] (1) - command-line sound recorder and player for ALSA soundcard driver
aseqnet (1) - ALSA sequencer connectors over network

Well, that is pretty cool isn't it ?? . . . . . . . cool ?:

QUOTE (Text @ Screen)

$ apropos cool
Smalledit-3.17.7 [smalledit] (1) - Stripped down version of Cooledit - a full-featured text editor for the X Window System
cooledit (1) - 3.17.7 - Full featured text editor for the X Window System, Version 11
coolicon (1) - 3.17.7 - Icon manager with graphical icon configuration and drag and drop support. Written under the Coolwidget library
coolman (1) - 3.17.7 - Man page reader for the X Window System based on the Coolwidget library

Have fun exploring !

Bruno

-- Feb 10 2004 ( Revised Dec 10 2005 ) --