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Re: README files



On Sun, Dec 18, 2005 at 05:18:32PM -0700, Ed Paris wrote:
|  
| Hi There,
| 
| I want to read the README.Debian.gz file.  I have tried to use vi and nano
| and all I get is gibberish.  How should I access this file in English?
| Thanks.

That file is a plain text file, but it is compressed using the gzip
algorithm.  The .gz suffix is an indication that (unless someone is
playing a funny trick) the file was compressed with gzip.  You can
verify this with the 'file' utility:
    $ file README.Debian.gz
    README.Debian.gz:     gzip compressed data, was "README.Debian", from Unix, max compression

In addition to the ways people have already suggested (my preference
is vim) you can use the 'gunzip' command to uncompress the file.  For
example:
    $ gunzip --stdout README.Debian.gz | less
    $ gunzip --stdout README.Debian > /tmp/README.Debian ; less /tmp/README.Debian
    $ cp README.Debian.gz  /tmp ; cd /tmp ; gunzip README.Debian.gz ; less README.Debian 

HTH,
-D

-- 
>Linux is not user-friendly.
It -is- user-friendly.  It is not ignorant-friendly and idiot-friendly.
(Seen somewhere on the net.)
 
www: http://dman13.dyndns.org/~dman/            jabber: dman@dman13.dyndns.org

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