8 Help and Documentation
openSUSE® comes with various sources of information and documentation, many
of which are already integrated in your installed system:
Desktop Help Centers
The help centers of both the KDE desktop (KDE help center) and the GNOME
desktop (Help) provide central access to the most important documentation re-
sources on your system, in searchable form. These resources include online help
for installed applications, man pages, info pages, and the Novell/SUSE manuals
delivered with your product. Learn more about your desktop's help center in
Section 8.1, “Using the KDE Help Center” (page 117) and Section 8.2, “Using
GNOME Help” (page 119).
Separate Help Packages for Some Applications
When installing new software with YaST, the software documentation is installed
automatically in most cases, and usually appears in the help center of your
desktop. However, some applications, such as GIMP, may have dierent online
help packages that can be installed separately with YaST and do not integrate
into the help centers.
Documentation in /usr/share/doc
This traditional help directory holds various documentation les and the release
notes for your system. Find more detailed information in Section “Documentation
Directory” (Chapter 35, Help and Documentation, ↑Reference).
Man Pages and Info Pages for Shell Commands
When working with the shell, you do not need to know the options of the com-
mands by heart. Traditionally, the shell provides integrated help by means of
man pages and info pages. Read more in Section “Man Pages” (Chapter 35, Help
and Documentation, ↑Reference) and Section “Info Pages” (Chapter 35, Help and
Documentation, ↑Reference).
8.1 Using the KDE Help Center
From the KDE desktop, you can access the KDE help center in various ways: If you
need information from within an application, simply click the application's Help button
or press [F1] to open the application's documentation in the help center. If you start
the help center from the main menu, or from the command line with khelpcenter,
you are taken to the main window of the help center from which you can browse the
help topics.
Help and Documentation 117
