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I'm trying to get traceroute to work, all 30 hops " *** ". While working to figure it out I found the -y option as part of the update and installation.

man -y tells me I'm stupid and googling Ubuntu flag "-y" tells me it is to skip the confirmation of the installation. I am not getting it, and I don't get it with the manual searches. For example, I just want to browse a section, say section 8 admin/sys.sudo. I enter "man 8" which returns:

No manual entry for 8

(Alternatively, what manual page do you want from section 8?) For example, try man man.

bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ MANPATH
MANPATH: command not found

So then I installed git and ..git clone http://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.

bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man command
No manual entry for command
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man file.conf
No manual entry for file.conf
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man man
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man -f -y
man: invalid option -- 'y'
Try 'man --help' or 'man --usage' for more information.
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$
 AD INFINITUM

I don't know where to look to see what i have and what I don't. I am just baffled at how complicated this seems to be needlessly.

bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man 8 1
No manual entry for 1 in section 8
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ apt-get man 8
E: Invalid operation man
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man 8 -y
No manual entry for -y in section 8
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man bash
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$  yum install man-pages
Command 'yum' not found, did you mean:
  command 'gum' from snap gum (0.12.0)
  command 'uum' from deb freewnn-jserver (1.1.1~a021+cvs20130302-7build1)
  command 'zum' from deb perforate (1.2-5.3)
  command 'sum' from deb coreutils (9.1-1ubuntu2)
  command 'num' from deb quickcal (2.4-1)
See 'snap info <snapname>' for additional versions.
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get install man-pages
[sudo] password for bob:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package man-pages
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$

Someone please tell me what to do.

man 8 -y is a valid argument. so I must not have section 8 available, but how do I see it? I've already downloaded the manual.

karel
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bryce colwell
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1 Answers1

2
bob@adminbaby:~/Desktop$ man 8 -y
No manual entry for -y in section 8

You've not provided any OS/release details; where the man will show details for your unstated release, and there can be slight variations on releases too.

A man man on my release (*thus it may differ to your unstated system) shows

SYNOPSIS
       man [man options] [[section] page ...] ...
       man -k [apropos options] regexp ...
       man -K [man options] [section] term ...
       man -f [whatis options] page ...
       man -l [man options] file ...
       man -w|-W [man options] page ...

where you'll note there is no reference to -y as an option, thus the -y parameter you gave is the page.

Why would you expect a section 8 for an entry on -y which your commands asks for. Were you instead assuming the -y was an option? Read man man to peruse what options are catered for on your system; and you gave no page to show in your command, thus interpreting the final bit of your command (-y) does fit expected results for man as per the manual page for it on my release.

I'm not aware of any page relating to -y, and I suspect you're misunderstanding your own command.

It's not clear what you're actually wanting, but if I wanted to understand the operation of -y in relation to the apt-get command, the page I would look at is

man apt-get

and type /-y (& hit ENTER) to search for the -y detail, skipping until I found what I was looking for. The -y though can differ in function for different commands, so adjust man apt-get to the other pages you're wanting to understand.

guiverc
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