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On Mon, 9 Dec 2013, bad apple wrote:
I also have practically never used info, although on the face of it, technically it is "better" than man. It's just that man isn't broken in any way, it's always there and it's what I'm used to. Does seem a bit odd that Debian left out the bash info package though.
it is my understanding that the debian repos' spotty inclusion of .info manuals has to do with certain manuals, licensed under the gnu free documentation license, specifying invariant sections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_FDL#Criticism in debian, some .info manuals are available in the non-free repositories. in particular iirc, in debian the info program's own .info manual, including some nice beginner-friendly tutorial-style documentation, is in the non-free package texinfo-doc-nonfree, and unless it is installed,... $ info info ...only brings up the manpage in the info browser. other .info manuals (like the one for bash) i've had to look for with a search engine, copy into /usr/share/info, and then run install-info. i find info manuals are a good second source of information when i don't find a man page very illuminating. info manuals tend to be more discursive and tutorial-like. it is too bad that license issues prevent their inclusion in debian. -wes -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq