Most full Linux distributions have directories that contain documentation on various topics. Depending on which distribution is being used, the layout may differ slightly but in most cases, the files are located in the /usr/share/doc
directory. The following is a partial listing of the /usr/share/doc
directory taken from Fedora 14:
/usr/share/doc/BackupPC-3.1.0
/usr/share/doc/ConsoleKit-0.4.2
/usr/share/doc/Django-1.2.3
/usr/share/doc/GConf2-2.31.91
/usr/share/doc/GeoIP-1.4.7
/usr/share/doc/GitPython-0.2.0
/usr/share/doc/HTML
/usr/share/doc/ImageMagick-6.6.4.1
/usr/share/doc/ModemManager-0.4
/usr/share/doc/MySQL-python-1.2.3
/usr/share/doc/NetworkManager-0.8.1
/usr/share/doc/abrt-1.1.13
/usr/share/doc/ant-1.7.1
/usr/share/doc/apcupsd-3.14.8
/usr/share/doc/doxygen-1.7.1
/usr/share/doc/ethtool-2.6.38
/usr/share/doc/fedora-release-14
/usr/share/doc/gcc-4.5.1
/usr/share/doc/gcc-c++-4.5.1
/usr/share/doc/gimp-2.6.11
/usr/share/doc/git-1.7.3.1
/usr/share/doc/gnome-desktop-2.32.0
/usr/share/doc/gnuchess-5.07
/usr/share/doc/httpd-2.2.16
/usr/share/doc/httpd-tools-2.2.16
/usr/share/doc/java-1.6.0-openjdk-1.6.0.0
/usr/share/doc/java-1.6.0-openjdk-devel-1.6.0.0
/usr/share/doc/kaffeine-1.1
/usr/share/doc/mailx-12.4
/usr/share/doc/make-3.82
/usr/share/doc/man-db-2.5.7
/usr/share/doc/man-pages-3.25
There is also a documentation viewer/browser, which is normally accessed through the file folder dialog. For example, if you open your file manager and go to one of the directories under /usr/share/doc
, you will see many files. Clicking on the README
file will bring up more information about that particular program on your system. There may be other readable files as well, such as CONTENT
, AUTHOR
, MAINTAINERS
, INSTALLATION
, and so on.