From the Canyon Edge: Introducing manpg.es -- an Ubuntu Manpage URL Shortener!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Introducing manpg.es -- an Ubuntu Manpage URL Shortener!

Three years ago today, I kicked off the Ubuntu Manpage Repository project with an RFC to the Ubuntu-Doc mailing list. Millions of roff-to-html renderings and page views later, I'm really, really proud of the Ubuntu Manpage Repository! It's such a convenient way to read traditional UNIX manual documentation, which may or may not be present on your local system.

Today, I would like to introduce manpg.es -- a URL shortener for Ubuntu manpages, for use in IRC, mail, wikis, microblogging, etc. Inspired by Martin Pool's excellent pad.lv shortener for Launchpad, I hope you find this useful too!

Save yourself a few keystrokes, and try http://manpg.es/. Perhaps you'd like to read about bash: http://manpg.es/bash, or maybe man, itself: http://manpg.es/man, or maybe you're just asking yourself wtf, http://manpg.es/wtf.

Note that the logic to guess which manpage you're looking for won't get it right every time, but it's usually pretty darn close. Moreover, improvements are always welcome at lp:ubuntu-manpage-repository ;-)

Enjoy,
:-Dustin

8 comments:

MichaelMay 5, 2011 at 9:59 AM
Nice. Any way of specifying the section number? open.1, open.2 and open.3 are all very different manpages...
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AnonymousMay 5, 2011 at 10:11 AM
How can I refer to a specific section? The example above is affected too: the general man man is about man(1), but http://manpg.es/man links to man(7)...
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Dustin KirklandMay 5, 2011 at 11:12 AM
Section numbers are coming very, very soon :-)

I need the Canonical IS guys to roll out some new logic to manpages.ubuntu.com for that to work. I'll blog again when that's up and running ;-)

Cheers,
:-Dustin
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Dustin KirklandMay 6, 2011 at 3:27 AM
Darwin Survivor,

Can you give some examples? FYI, the functionality requires javascript.

Dustin
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Dustin KirklandMay 16, 2011 at 3:24 AM
Michael + Anonymous,

Section numbers are now supported!

e.g.:
* http://manpg.es/open.3posix

Cheers,
Dustin
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AnonymousMay 16, 2011 at 6:28 AM
@Dustin Kirkland It is now working, thanks. I recently installed no-script, but can't remember if I had it running when I tried it last time.

As always, great work, keep it up!
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MichaelMay 16, 2011 at 7:24 AM
Fantastic job! Thanks for all the work.
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mathewMay 20, 2011 at 2:51 PM
You have some encoding problems. Look at http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/maverick/en/man1/ls.1posix.html, -F option.

"Do not follow symbolic links named as operands unless the -H or
-L options are specified. Write a slash ( ��’/��’ ) immediately
after each pathname that is a directory, an asterisk ( ��’*��’ )
after each that is executable, a vertical bar ( ��’|��’ ) after each
that is a FIFO, and an at sign ( ��’@��’ ) after each that is a
symbolic link. For other file types, other symbols may be
written."
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Add comment

Please do not use blog comments for support requests! Blog comments do not scale well to this effect.

Instead, please use Launchpad for Bugs and StackExchange for Questions.
* bugs.launchpad.net
* stackexchange.com

Thanks,
:-Dustin

About the Author

Dustin Kirkland (Twitter, LinkedIn) is an engineer at heart, with a penchant for reducing complexity and solving problems at the cross-sections of technology, business, and people.

With a degree in computer engineering from Texas A&M University (2001), his full-time career began as a software engineer at IBM in the Linux Technology Center working on the Linux kernel and security certifications, including a one-year stint as an dedicated engineer-in-residence at Red Hat in Boston (2005). Dustin was awarded the title Master Inventor at IBM, in recognition of his prolific patent work as an inventor and reviewer with IBM's intellectual property attorneys.

Dustin then first joined Canonical (2008) as an engineer (eventually, engineering manager), helping create the Ubuntu Server distribution and establishing Ubuntu as the overwhelming favorite Linux distribution in Amazon, Google, and Microsoft's cloud platforms, as well as authoring and maintaining dozens of new open source packages.

Dustin joined Gazzang (2011), a venture-backed start-up built around an open source project that he co-authored (eCryptFS), as Chief Technology Officer, and helped dozens of enterprise customers encrypt their data at rest and securely manage their keys. Gazzang was acquired by Cloudera (2014).

Having effectively monetized eCryptFS as an open source project at Gazzang, Dustin returned to Canonical (2013) as the VP of Product for Ubuntu and spent the next several years launching a portfolio of products and services (Ubuntu Advantage, Extended Security Maintenance, Canonical Livepatch, MAAS, OpenStack, Kubernetes) that continues to deliver considerable annual recurring revenue. With Canonical based in London, an 800+ work-from-home employee roster and customers spread across 40+ countries, Dustin traveled the world over, connecting with clients and colleagues steeped in rich cultural experiences.

Google Cloud (2018) recruited Dustin from Canonical to product manage Google's entrance into on-premises data centers with its GKE On-Prem (now, Anthos) offering, with a specific focus on the underlying operating system, hypervisor, and container security. This work afforded Dustin a view deep into the back end data center of many financial services companies, where he still sees tremendous opportunities for improvements in security, efficiencies, cost-reduction, and disruptive new technology adoption.

Seeking a growth-mode opportunity in the fintech sector, Dustin joined Apex Clearing (now, Apex Fintech Solutions) as the Chief Product Officer (2019), where he led several organizations including product management, field engineering, data science, and business partnerships. He drastically revamped Apex's product portfolio and product management processes, retooling away from a legacy "clearing house and custodian", and into a "software-as-a-service fintech" offering instant brokerage account opening, real-time fractional stock trading, a secure closed-network crypto solution, and led the acquisition and integration of Silver's tax and cost basis solution.

Drawn back into a large cap, Dustin joined Goldman Sachs (2021) as a Managing Director and Head of Platform Product Management, within the Consumer banking division, which included Marcus, and the Apple and GM credit cards. He built a cross-functional product management community and established numerous documented product management best practices, processes, and anti-patterns.

Dustin lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Kim and their wonderful two daughters.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Introducing manpg.es -- an Ubuntu Manpage URL Shortener!

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