Funny manuals in Ubuntu

Ubuntu has a dearth of easter eggs, but every now an then one pops along. I first came across the "man baby" on an Indian blog sometime in 2008 with no reference to the funny man pages. Trawling the Internet in search of Ubuntu, I found it again at www.junauza.com but with the software references in tact. I republish the posting  here for your pleasure. Thank you junauza.

Are you feeling a little down lately? Why not open a Linux terminal and read some man pages. Well, not those man pages that can sometimes make our head spin. I'm talking about the funny man pages that will make you laugh out loud.

But first, you have to install the 'funny-manpages' package via Synaptic Package Manager (assuming you are using Ubuntu).

Just look for 'funny-manpages':

In case you didn't read the description carefully, there's a warning that says:

A set of miscellaneous humorous manpages (don't take them too seriously!). Includes, amongst others, rtfm (1).
Warning! Some of these manpages might be treated offensive.
You've been warned.

You can also install the funny-manpages package via command line.
Code (assuming you use Ubuntu):

sudo apt-get install funny-manpages

Now start reading the humorous man pages by using the 'man' command.

Here's one funny example...

Code:

man baby

Output:

NAME
baby - create new process from two parents

SYNOPSIS
baby -sex [m|f] [-name name]

DESCRIPTION
baby is initiated when one parent process polls another server process through a socket connection in the BSD version or through pipes in the System V implementation. baby runs at low priority for approximately forty weeks and then terminates with a heavy system load. Most systems require constant monitoring when baby reaches its final stages of execution.

Older implementations of baby did not require both initiating processes to be present at the time of completion. In those versions the initiating process which was not present was awakened and notified of the results upon completion. It has since been determined that the presence of both parent processes result in a generally lower system load at completion, and thus current versions of baby expect both parent processes to be active during the final stages.

Successful completion of baby results in the creation and naming of a new process. Parent processes then broadcast messages to all other processes, local and remote, informing them of their new status.

OPTIONS
-sex define the gender of the created process

-name assign the name name to the new process

EXAMPLES
baby -sex f -name Jacqueline

completed successfully on July 9, 1992 at 9:11pm. Jacqueline's vital statistics: 8 pounds 3 oz, 20 inches, long dark hair. The parent process, Kim Dunbar, is reportedly doing fine.

SEE ALSO
cigar(6), dump(5), cry(3).

BUGS
Despite its complexity, baby only knows one signal, SIGCHLD, (or SIGCLD in the System V implementation), which it uses to contact the parent processes. One or both parent processes must then inspect the baby process to determine the cause of the signal.

The sleep(1) command may not work as expected on either parent process for some time afterward, as each new instance of baby sends intermittent signals to the parent processes which must be handled by the parents immediately.

A baby process will frequently dump core, requiring either or both parent processes to clean up after it.

Despite the reams of available documentation on invoking and maintaining baby, most parent processes are overwhelmed.

AUTHORS
From a man page by Joe Beck, .

Read other funny man pages with 'man' command followed by these keywords:

celibacy
condom
date
echo
flame
flog
gong
grope, egrope, fgrope
party
rescrog
rm
rtfm
tm
uubp
xkill
xlart
sex
strfry

Life is beautiful. Enjoy it. Use Linux :-)