Where Are Linux Man Pages Stored?
The man page hierarchy by section on Linux, and how MANPATH and config extend it.
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Man pages live compressed as nroff sources under /usr/share/man, sorted by section: man1 commands, man2 syscalls, man3 library calls, through man8 admin tools (plus man9 kernel and locale trees). The .gz suffix is normal, not corruption; read with man, locate with man -w, dump raw with zcat.
Extra hierarchies (/usr/local/share/man, /opt trees) join via MANPATH or the man_db config (manpath.config on some distros), and an exported MANPATH overrides config entirely. Check the effective search path with manpath. Installing into the system tree needs root; formatting any single file works with man on its path.
Where Linux stores this, by platform
/usr/share/man/
Sections man1..man8 (plus man9, locale subdirs); files like man1/ls.1.gz. Supplements in /usr/local/share/man and /opt/*/share/man. Config /etc/manpath.config or man_db.conf (distro dependent); MANPATH env overrides. Inspect with manpath and echo $MANPATH.
Frequently asked questions
Why is there no man page for my /usr/local tool?
Its hierarchy is not on the search path. Add /usr/local/share/man via MANPATH or the man_db config (MANPATH_MAP entries), then confirm with man -w toolname.
Are .gz man files broken?
No, compression is standard. man reads them transparently; use zcat to view raw source or man /path/file.gz to format a single file directly.
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