Discoveries: System

Arch Linux Documentation System

2026-04-05: Four documentation locations

Arch distributes documentation across four locations. Most engineers only use man:

Location Count What’s There

/usr/share/doc/

178 packages

HTML guides, examples, FAQs

/usr/share/man/

20,905 pages

Primary tool documentation

/usr/share/info/

95+ entries

GNU tutorial-style (deeper than man)

/usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Unix/

461 files

Every flag a tool supports

Worklog: WRKLOG-2026-04-05

2026-04-05: info coreutils is the biggest untapped resource

info coreutils documents every GNU core utility in tutorial-style depth — sort, cut, tr, tee, env, printf, test, expr, wc, uniq, comm, paste, join, nl, od, fmt, pr, fold. Longer and more detailed than their individual man pages.

info coreutils

Also valuable: info sed, info gawk, info find, info make — all tutorial-oriented.

Worklog: WRKLOG-2026-04-05

2026-04-05: Arch strips docs by default

Arch packages are minimal — docs are often stripped or split into companion packages. To find more docs:

# Search for -docs companion packages
pacman -Ss -- '-docs'

# Find all HTML docs currently installed
find /usr/share/doc -name '*.html' -type f | awk -F/ '{print $5}' | sort -u

# Find packages with example configs
find /usr/share/doc -type d -name examples | awk -F/ '{print $5}'

Worklog: WRKLOG-2026-04-05

2026-04-05: High-value HTML docs already installed

These ship with their packages and render in w3m:

  • bash/bashref.html — Complete GNU Bash Reference Manual

  • kitty/html/ — 23MB, 266 files, full terminal emulator docs

  • lua/manual.html — Lua 5.4 complete reference

  • Linux-PAM/ — Three full PAM guides (SAG, ADG, MWG)

  • stow/manual-single.html — Full GNU Stow manual

  • lazygit/*.md — Custom keybindings, stacked branches, fixup commits

Full inventory: Local Documentation System

Worklog: WRKLOG-2026-04-05

2026-04-05: Zsh completion files as documentation

461 completion files reveal every flag a tool supports. Reading them is like reading the --help output but more structured:

# Read git's completion file
less /usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Unix/_git

# Count how comprehensive it is
wc -l /usr/share/zsh/functions/Completion/Unix/_git

Worklog: WRKLOG-2026-04-05

2026-04-05: man section 5 for config file formats

540 section 5 pages document config file syntax — the most underused man section:

# Count section 5 pages
find /usr/share/man/man5 -type f | wc -l

Examples: man 5 sudoers, man 5 sshd_config, man 5 journald.conf, man 5 fstab, man 5 nft.

Worklog: WRKLOG-2026-04-05