Comment man page != end user documentation (Score 1) 769
The question in the summary shows the extent of the problem. No, a man page is not proper end-user documentation. It's great for a trained IT professional who quickly needs to look up the syntax for a command. But for my mom or my wife's dad, even getting to the man page is a challenge - and to get there, they need to know that man pages exist. Are there even man page viewers for the desktop? Ones that are readily accessible and preinstalled with the default system?
But I must come to Linux's defense, too. The documentation on my latest Windows system is not much better, except that a help system is built right into the desktop. It's the availability of third party printed documentation that makes the difference.