I am absolutely with you that one one needs is 'here is an example of
how to do X'
Life is too short to read the whole manual cover to cover.
Marc Haber <mh+usenetspam1118@zugschl.us> writes:
Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
Marc Haber wrote:
Second, blocking incoming echo requests makes debugging harder and
doesn't give you increased security.
When a certain server I had responsibility for was undergoing a
security audit for PCI compliance many years ago, I was told, not
to turn off ICMP replies, but to turn off timestamps on them.
Apparently, knowing the server’s idea of the correct time was seen
as a potential security vulnerability.
The justification is more likely to have been attack surface
minimization.
On 2025-08-12 09:39, Mike Scott wrote:
On 11/08/2025 23:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I don’t know. I’m just able to read documentation. I thought that was a >>> skill that was so commonplace among folks who work with computers for a
living that you could take it for granted, but apparently not.
The horror is manuals written by the code-writer. They describe in
intimate detail each and every function; but not how it all hooks up. In
this case, I'd not even seen the nft man page, because I'd been
searching for the wrong terms, hadn't got there because I'd got drowned
in a morass of ipfilter and similar stuff, now apparently out-of-date;
and gave it up as a bad job.
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand
on them?
+1
Le 19-08-2025, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> a écrit :
On 2025-08-12 09:39, Mike Scott wrote:
On 11/08/2025 23:02, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
I don’t know. I’m just able to read documentation. I thought that was a
skill that was so commonplace among folks who work with computers for a >>>> living that you could take it for granted, but apparently not.
The horror is manuals written by the code-writer. They describe in
intimate detail each and every function; but not how it all hooks up. In >>> this case, I'd not even seen the nft man page, because I'd been
searching for the wrong terms, hadn't got there because I'd got drowned
in a morass of ipfilter and similar stuff, now apparently out-of-date;
and gave it up as a bad job.
What's wrong with a couple of clear examples, plus the detail to expand
on them?
+1
Just "man tldr". In fact no. Install tldr with your distro package
manager. Then "tldr tldr".
Enjoy.
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:44:47 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
Then you can’t work in this field.
On 2025-08-21, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 15:27, Nuno Silva wrote:
On 2025-08-21, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-21 12:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:[...]
On 21/08/2025 10:44, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
I primarily want documentation that allows me to start using a new >>>>>> program, fast, and to achieve my goals.
Once I have that, I want the reference documentation.
+1001
To that I added "bird.avi" as output file, but WhatsApp rejected
it. So I told ChatGpt all that. It replied giving me the missing data: >>>>
ffmpeg -i IMAG0009.avi -vf "scale=640:-2" -c:v libx264 -profile:v \
baseline -level 3.0 -preset fast -c:a aac -b:a 128k \
-movflags +faststart bird_whatsapp.mp4
and that worked. Having that command line, I modified it easily for
more resolution (scale=1024:-2). I was already familiar with all the
options, I just needed to find which would produce the wanted result,
and not spend a day on it.
But if I want to find in the manual what "-b" stands for, I fail. Ask
chatgpt, instant reply, it is bitrate. Oh, yes, I remember now.
:-)
Oh, searching the man for "movflags" or "faststart" fails. So ask the
AI. They are in the man page for the MP3 muxer, it says. Oh, right, I
forgot that.
So, even a reference manual is hard to use when you want to find a
particular reference, basically using "grep".
(ffmpeg's online manual is spread over more than one page, isn't it?)
Yes.
I don't know right now if there is a command that would search all
manuals and find a word.
cer@Telcontar:~> apropos movflags
movflags: nothing appropriate.
cer@Telcontar:~>
At least here, perhaps "man -w -K movflags". Turns up ffmpeg-all and ffmpeg-formats.
(But no, I wasn't aware of this, had to check "man man", so maybe
there's some better man flag, or separate utility that I'm not aware of (besides plain grep on the man pages where possible, I guess).)
On 2025-08-20 21:25, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Just "man tldr". In fact no. Install tldr with your distro package
manager. Then "tldr tldr".
Enjoy.
I was curious, so I installed it.
cer@Telcontar:~> man tldr
No manual entry for tldr
cer@Telcontar:~>
cer@Telcontar:~> tldr tldr
Error: Page cache not found. Please run `tldr --update` to download the cache.
Note: You can optionally enable automatic cache updates by adding the following config to your config file:
Where is that configuration file?
«The path to your config file can be looked up with `tldr --show-paths`.»
So each user has its own cache? Is not that a waste?
Directory "/home/cer/.cache/tealdeer" contains 17 MB.
Le 21-08-2025, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> a écrit :
On 2025-08-20 21:25, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Just "man tldr". In fact no. Install tldr with your distro package
manager. Then "tldr tldr".
Enjoy.
I was curious, so I installed it.
cer@Telcontar:~> man tldr
No manual entry for tldr
cer@Telcontar:~>
cer@Telcontar:~> tldr tldr
Error: Page cache not found. Please run `tldr --update` to download the
cache.
I'm really surprised. I installed it on archlinux, ubuntu and guix and
it worked out of the box on those three systems.
Note: You can optionally enable automatic cache updates by adding the
following config to your config file:
I ran "tldr --update" and I see no difference. I have no config file on
my computer. I'm really surprised about that requirement.
Where is that configuration file?
I have no clue. I have none and everything's OK.
«The path to your config file can be looked up with `tldr --show-paths`.»
That option doesn't exist on my computer.
So each user has its own cache? Is not that a waste?
Agreed. It's a waste of space and a waste of work because you need to
launch the update for each user.
Directory "/home/cer/.cache/tealdeer" contains 17 MB.
It looks like you are running tealdeer instead of tldr. When I'm running tldr. From what I see, tealdeer is a rewrite of tldr in rust. Maybe that explain the differences.
But anyway, once it works, it grants you what you are looking for:
simple examples to use unknown commands without the need to read the full documentation.
On 2025-08-22 03:06, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:44:47 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I do not want reference documentation.
Then you can’t work in this field.
Haw, haw! :-D
But anyway, once it works, it grants you what you are looking for:
simple examples to use unknown commands without the need to read the
full documentation.
On 23 Aug 2025 12:40:13 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
But anyway, once it works, it grants you what you are looking for:
simple examples to use unknown commands without the need to read the
full documentation.
If only there were a simple example for how to get this command set up without the need to read the full documentation ...
Le 23-08-2025, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> a écrit :
On 23 Aug 2025 12:40:13 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
But anyway, once it works, it grants you what you are looking for:
simple examples to use unknown commands without the need to read the
full documentation.
If only there were a simple example for how to get this command set up
without the need to read the full documentation ...
[Missed the irony]
If there's no network connectivity, your web search skills won't do much?
It is truly boggling that this requires explaining,
let alone hand-holding through every step of reasoning it out o_O
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