How to use man pages

In a linux environment, it is possible to learn more about a command like ls or cd (e.g. how to use it, what options or flags are available, etc.) by reading it's documentation manual. This is done via the man command, which formats and displays this documentation.

Simply enough, you can simply type man <command> to learn more about a linux command.

All man pages have a common format, which begins with the name of the command, a brief description of what it does, and further description of options/flags (e.g. -L) and usage example, if applicable.

Here is an example of output for man ls:

LS(1)                                         User Commands                                        LS(1)

NAME
       ls - list directory contents

SYNOPSIS
       ls [OPTION]... [FILE]...

DESCRIPTION
       List information about the FILEs (the current directory by default).  Sort entries alphabetically
       if none of -cftuvSUX nor --sort is specified.

       Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.

       -a, --all
              do not ignore entries starting with .

       -A, --almost-all
              do not list implied . and ..

       --author
              with -l, print the author of each file

...