Use Apropos to Learn New Terminal Commands

Working with the command line can save time, but most of us non-programmers know only a few key commands to use. Using the apropos command, however, anyone can search for commands and programs that relate to whatever keyword you search for. If, for instance, you knew you had a video encoder handy but didn’t quite know how to get at it, type in apropos mpeg and you’ll get a list of commands and programs that have the words “mpeg” in their man, or manual, files. Great tip for beginners and terminal hackers alike, and apropos is installed on a wide number of Linux distros and other terminals. For more beginner help, check out Unix resources for newbies.