[patches] improve man pages for dmesg and *fdisk

Benno Schulenberg
2013-07-03T10:20:07Z

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Hi,

Attached three patches improve wording and formatting for the man
pages of cfdisk, fdisk, sfdisk, and dmesg, fixing several typos in
the latter ("time stam", "defition") and clarifying the description
of the --activate option for sfdisk.

Regards,

Benno

--
http://www.fastmail.fm - The way an email service should be

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From 0c7ebbee9820953adf42a8f47744c6f68cbdd378 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 14:37:52 +0200
Subject: [PATCH 1/3] docs: improve formatting and wording of man pages for fdisk and cfdisk

Signed-off-by: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
---
fdisks/cfdisk.8 | 112 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------------------------
fdisks/fdisk.8 | 49 ++++++++++++------------
2 files changed, 80 insertions(+), 81 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fdisks/cfdisk.8 b/fdisks/cfdisk.8
index efd33ce..2da8a31 100644
--- a/fdisks/cfdisk.8
+++ b/fdisks/cfdisk.8
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ cfdisk \- display or manipulate disk partition table
.RB [ \-s
.IR sectors-per-track ]
.RB [ \-P
-.IR opt ]
+.IR format ]
.RI [ device ]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B cfdisk
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ argument are:
.RS
/dev/hda [default]
/dev/hdb
-/dev/sda
+/dev/sda [the fallback when /dev/hda does not exist]
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc
/dev/sdd
@@ -46,26 +46,26 @@ argument are:

Note that
.B cfdisk
-does not align partitions to block device I/O limits. This functionality is
+does not align partitions to block-device I/O limits. This functionality is
provided by
.BR fdisk (8).

-In order to write the partition table
+In order to write the partition table,
.B cfdisk
needs something called the `geometry' of the disk: the number
-of `heads' and the number of `sectors per track'. Linux does not
+of `heads' and the number of `sectors per track'. Linux does not
use any geometry, so if the disk will not be accessed by other
operating systems, you can safely accept the defaults that
.B cfdisk
-chooses for you. The geometry used by
+chooses for you. The geometry used by
.B cfdisk
-is found as follows. First the partition table is examined,
+is found as follows. First the partition table is examined,
to see what geometry was used by the previous program that
-changed it. If the partition table is empty, or contains garbage,
+changed it. If the partition table is empty, or contains garbage,
or does not point at a consistent geometry, the kernel is
-asked for advice. If nothing works 255 heads and 63 sectors/track
-is assumed. The geometry can be overridden on the command line
-or by use of the `g' command. When partitioning an empty large modern
+asked for advice. If nothing works, 255 heads and 63 sectors/track
+are assumed. The geometry can be overridden on the command line
+or by use of the `g' command. When partitioning an empty large modern
disk, picking 255 heads and 63 sectors/track is always a good idea.
There is no need to set the number of cylinders, since
.B cfdisk
@@ -83,22 +83,22 @@ option. This will ignore the partition table on the disk.

The main display is composed of four sections, from top to bottom: the
header, the partitions, the command line and a warning line. The
-header contains the program name and version number followed by the
-disk drive and its geometry. The partitions section always displays
+header gives the program name and version number followed by information about
+the disk drive and its geometry. The partitions section always displays
the current partition table. The command line is the place where
commands and text are entered. The available commands are usually
displayed in brackets. The warning line is usually empty except when
there is important information to be displayed. The current partition
-is highlighted with reverse video (or an arrow if the
+is highlighted with reverse video (or with an arrow if the
.B \-a
-option is given). All partition specific commands apply to the
+option is given). All partition-specific commands apply to the
current partition.

The format of the partition table in the partitions section is, from
left to right: Name, Flags, Partition Type, Filesystem Type and Size.
-The name is the partition device name. The flags can be
+The name is the device name of the partition. The flags can be
.IR Boot ,
-which designates a bootable partition or
+which designates a bootable partition, or
.IR NC ,
which stands for "Not Compatible with DOS or OS/2". DOS, OS/2 and
possibly other operating systems require the first sector of the first
@@ -132,8 +132,8 @@ the change units command below). If an asterisk
.RB ( * )
appears after the size, this means that the partition is not aligned
on cylinder boundaries.
-.SH "DOS 6.x WARNING"

+.SH "DOS 6.x WARNING"
The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first
sector of the data area of the partition, and treats this information
as more reliable than the information in the partition table. DOS
@@ -150,14 +150,14 @@ format the partition. For example, if you were using cfdisk to make a DOS
partition table entry for /dev/hda1, then (after exiting fdisk or cfdisk
and rebooting Linux so that the partition table information is valid) you
would use the command "dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda1 bs=512 count=1" to zero
-the first 512 bytes of the partition. Note:
+the first 512 bytes of the partition. Note:

.B BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL
if you use the
.B dd
command, since a small typo can make all of the data on your disk useless.

-For best results, you should always use an OS-specific partition table
+For best results, you should always use an OS-specific partition-table
program. For example, you should make DOS partitions with the DOS FDISK
program and Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk program.

@@ -182,8 +182,8 @@ space or marked as unusable cannot be deleted.
Change the disk geometry (cylinders, heads, or sectors-per-track).
.B WARNING:
This option should only be used by people who know what they are
-doing. A command line option is also available to change the disk
-geometry. While at the change disk geometry command line, you can
+doing. A command-line option is also available to change the disk
+geometry. While at the change-disk-geometry command line, you can
choose to change cylinders
.RB ( c ),
heads
@@ -201,7 +201,7 @@ desired value and press
The altered disk parameter values do not take effect until you return
to the main menu (by pressing
.IR Enter " or " ESC
-at the change disk geometry command line). If you change the geometry
+at the change-disk-geometry command line). If you change the geometry
such that the disk appears larger, the extra sectors are added at the
end of the disk as free space. If the disk appears smaller, the
partitions that are beyond the new last sector are deleted and the
@@ -221,21 +221,21 @@ etc. compatible disk usage. The default when creating a partition is
to create DOS, OS/2, etc. compatible partitions.
.TP
.B n
-Create new partition from free space. If the partition type is
+Create a new partition from free space. If the partition type is
.IR Primary " or " Logical ,
a partition of that type will be created, but if the partition type is
.IR Pri/Log ,
you will be prompted for the type you want to create. Be aware that
(1) there are only four slots available for primary partitions and (2)
since there can be only one extended partition, which contains all of
-the logical drives, all of the logical drives must be contiguous (with
-no intervening primary partition).
+the logical partitions, all the logical partitions must be contiguous
+(with no intervening primary partition).
.B cfdisk
next prompts you for the size of the partition you want to create.
-The default size, equal to the entire free space of the current
-partition, is displayed in megabytes. You can either press the
+The default size, equal to the entire available free space at the current
+position, is displayed in megabytes. You can either press the
.I Enter
-key to accept the default size or enter a different size at the
+key to accept the default size, or enter a different size at the
prompt.
.B cfdisk
accepts size entries in megabytes
@@ -247,7 +247,7 @@ cylinders
and sectors
.RB ( S )
by entering the number immediately followed by one of
-.RB ( M ", " K ", " C " or " S ).
+.BR M ", " K ", " C " or " S .
If the partition fills the free space available, the partition is
created and you are returned to the main command line. Otherwise, the
partition can be created at the beginning or the end of the free
@@ -260,8 +260,8 @@ automatically adjusts the other partitions' partition types if all of
the primary partitions are used.
.TP
.B p
-Print the partition table to the screen or to a file. There are
-several different formats for the partition that you can choose from:
+Print the partition table to the screen or to a file. There are
+three different formats for the partition that you can choose from:
.sp
.RS
.TP
@@ -269,7 +269,7 @@ several different formats for the partition that you can choose from:
Raw data format (exactly what would be written to disk)
.TP
.B s
-Partition table in sector order format
+Partition table in sector-order format
.TP
.B t
Partition table in raw format
@@ -286,7 +286,7 @@ partition. The data is printed in hex byte by byte with 16 bytes per
line.

The
-.I partition table in sector order format
+.I partition table in sector-order format
will print the partition table ordered by sector number. The fields,
from left to right, are the number of the partition, the partition
type, the first sector, the last sector, the offset from the first
@@ -302,9 +302,9 @@ partition length is not divisible by the cylinder size, an asterisk
is printed after the non-aligned sector number/count. This usually
indicates that a partition was created by an operating system that
either does not align partitions to cylinder boundaries or that used
-different disk geometry information. If you know the disk geometry of
+different disk-geometry information. If you know the disk geometry of
the other operating system, you could enter the geometry information
-with the change geometry command
+with the change-geometry command
.RB ( g ).

For the first partition on the disk and for all logical partitions, if
@@ -356,27 +356,24 @@ filesystem type at the prompt or accept the default filesystem type
.RI [ Linux ].
.TP
.B u
-Change units of the partition size display. It will rotate through
-megabytes, sectors and cylinders.
+Change the unit of the partition-size display. It will rotate through
+megabytes, sectors, and cylinders.
.TP
.B W
-Write partition table to disk (must enter an upper case W). Since
+Write the partition table to disk (you must enter an uppercase W). Since
this might destroy data on the disk, you must either confirm or deny
the write by entering `yes' or `no'. If you enter `yes',
.B cfdisk
-will write the partition table to disk and the tell the kernel to re-read the
+will write the partition table to disk and then tell the kernel to re-read the
partition table from the disk. The re-reading of the partition table does not
work in some cases, for example for device-mapper devices. In
-particular case you need to inform kernel about new
-partitions by
+such a case you need to inform the kernel about new partitions by
.BR partprobe (8),
.BR kpartx (8)
or reboot the system.
.TP
-.I Up Arrow
-.TP
-.I Down Arrow
-Move cursor to the previous or next partition. If there are more
+.IR "Up Arrow" , " Down Arrow"
+Move the cursor to the previous or next partition. If there are more
partitions than can be displayed on a screen, you can display the next
(previous) set of partitions by moving down (up) at the last (first)
partition displayed on the screen.
@@ -391,10 +388,11 @@ Print the help screen.
.RE
All of the commands can be entered with either upper or lower case
letters (except for
-.BR W rites).
+.BR W rite).
When in a sub-menu or at a prompt to enter a filename, you can hit the
.I ESC
key to return to the main command line.
+
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-a\fR, \fB\-\-arrow\fR
@@ -406,34 +404,34 @@ Do not use the geometry given by the disk driver, but try to
guess a geometry from the partition table.
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
-Print the version number and copyright.
+Display version information and exit.
.TP
\fB\-z\fR, \fB\-\-zero\fR
-Start with zeroed partition table. This option is useful when you
+Start with a zeroed partition table. This option is useful when you
want to repartition your entire disk.
.I Note:
this option does not zero the partition table on the disk; rather, it
simply starts the program without reading the existing partition
table.
.TP
-\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-cylinders\fR \fcylinders\fR
+\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-cylinders\fR \fIcylinders\fR
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-heads\fR \fIheads\fR
.TP
-\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-sectors\fR \fsectors-per-track\fR
+\fB\-s\fR, \fB\-\-sectors\fR \fIsectors-per-track\fR
Override the number of cylinders, heads and sectors per track read
from the BIOS. If your BIOS or adapter does not supply this
information or if it supplies incorrect information, use these options
to set the disk geometry values.
.TP
-\fB\-P\fR, \fB\-\-print\fR \fIr|s|t\fR
-Prints the partition table in specified formats.
-.I opt
-can be one or more of "r", "s" or "t". See the
+\fB\-P\fR, \fB\-\-print\fR \fBr\fR|\fBs\fR|\fBt\fR
+Print the partition table in the specified format(s).
+See the
.BR p rint
-command (above) for more information on the print formats.
+command (above) for more information on what the available formats show.
+
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
-0: No errors; 1: Invocation error; 2: I/O error;
+0: no errors; 1: invocation error; 2: I/O error;
3: cannot get geometry; 4: bad partition table on disk.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR fdisk (8),
diff --git a/fdisks/fdisk.8 b/fdisks/fdisk.8
index e4e585f..9e81eb2 100644
--- a/fdisks/fdisk.8
+++ b/fdisks/fdisk.8
@@ -3,19 +3,21 @@
.\" Copyright 2012 Davidlohr Bueso <dave@gnu.org>
.\" May be distributed under the GNU General Public License
.TH FDISK 8 "June 2012" "util-linux" "System Administration"
+
.SH NAME
fdisk \- manipulate disk partition table
+
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B fdisk
.RB [ \-uc ]
.RB [ \-b
.IR sectorsize ]
.RB [ \-C
-.IR cyls ]
+.IR cylinders ]
.RB [ \-H
.IR heads ]
.RB [ \-S
-.IR sects ]
+.IR sectors ]
.I device
.sp
.B fdisk \-l
@@ -28,6 +30,7 @@ fdisk \- manipulate disk partition table
.B fdisk \-v
.sp
.B fdisk \-h
+
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B fdisk
(in the first form of invocation)
@@ -41,7 +44,8 @@ for large partitions. In these cases, use the more advanced GNU
.BR parted (8).

.B fdisk
-does not use DOS-compatible mode and cylinders as display units by default.
+does not use DOS-compatible mode and cylinders as display unit
+by default anymore.
The old deprecated DOS behavior can be enabled with
the '-c=dos -u=cylinders' command-line options.

@@ -52,7 +56,7 @@ This division is recorded in the
found in sector 0 of the disk.
(In the BSD world one talks about `disk slices' and a `disklabel'.)

-Linux needs at least one partition, namely for its root file system.
+Linux needs at least one partition, namely for its root filesystem.
It can use swap files and/or swap partitions, but the latter are more
efficient. So, usually one will want a second Linux partition
dedicated as swap partition.
@@ -147,13 +151,12 @@ this is unlikely to cause difficulty unless you have OS/2 on your machine.

A sync() and an ioctl(BLKRRPART) (reread partition table from disk)
are performed before exiting when the partition table has been updated.
-Long ago it used to be necessary to reboot after the use of fdisk.
+Long ago it used to be necessary to reboot after the use of \fBfdisk\fR.
I do not think this is the case anymore -- indeed, rebooting too quickly
might cause loss of not-yet-written data. Note that both the kernel
and the disk hardware may buffer data.

.SH "DOS 6.x WARNING"
-
The DOS 6.x FORMAT command looks for some information in the first
sector of the data area of the partition, and treats this information
as more reliable than the information in the partition table. DOS
@@ -186,34 +189,34 @@ program and Linux partitions with the Linux fdisk or Linux cfdisk program.
.BI "\-b " sectorsize
Specify the sector size of the disk. Valid values are 512, 1024, 2048 or 4096.
(Recent kernels know the sector size. Use this only on old kernels or
-to override the kernel's ideas.) Since util-linux-2.17, fdisk differentiates
+to override the kernel's ideas.) Since util-linux-2.17, \fBfdisk\fR differentiates
between logical and physical sector size. This option changes both sector sizes to
.IB sectorsize .
.TP
.BI "\-c"[=mode]
Specify the compatibility mode, 'dos' or 'nondos'. The default is non-DOS
mode. For backward compatibility, it is possible to use the option without
-the <mode> argument -- then the default is used. Note that the optional
-<mode> argument cannot be separated from the -c option by a space, the correct
-form is for example '-c=dos'. This option is DEPRECATED.
+the \fImode\fR argument -- then the default is used. Note that the optional
+\fImode\fR argument cannot be separated from the \fB-c\fR option by a space,
+the correct form is for example '-c=dos'. This option is DEPRECATED.
.TP
-.BI "\-C " cyls
+.BI "\-C " cylinders
Specify the number of cylinders of the disk.
-I have no idea why anybody would want to do so. This option is DEPRECATED.
+I have no idea why anybody would want to do so. This option is DEPRECATED.
.TP
.BI "\-H " heads
Specify the number of heads of the disk. (Not the physical number,
of course, but the number used for partition tables.)
-Reasonable values are 255 and 16. This option is DEPRECATED.
+Reasonable values are 255 and 16. This option is DEPRECATED.
.TP
-.BI "\-S " sects
+.BI "\-S " sectors
Specify the number of sectors per track of the disk.
(Not the physical number, of course, but the number used for
partition tables.)
-A reasonable value is 63. This option is DEPRECATED.
+A reasonable value is 63. This option is DEPRECATED.
.TP
.BI \-h
-Print help and then exit.
+Display a help text and exit.
.TP
.B \-l
List the partition tables for the specified devices and then exit.
@@ -227,18 +230,15 @@ Print the size (in blocks) of each given partition.
.BI "\-u"[=unit]
When listing partition tables, show sizes in 'sectors' or in 'cylinders'. The
default is to show sizes in sectors. For backward compatibility, it is possible
-to use the option without the <units> argument -- then the default is used.
-Note that the optional <unit> argument cannot be separated from the -u option
-by a space, the correct form is for example '-u=cylinders'.
+to use the option without the \fIunit\fR argument -- then the default is used.
+Note that the optional \fIunit\fR argument cannot be separated from the \fB-u\fR
+option by a space, the correct form is for example '-u=cylinders'.
.TP
.B \-v
-Print version number of
-.B fdisk
-program and exit.
+Display version information and exit.

.SH ENVIRONMENT
-.IP FDISK_DEBUG=0xffff
-enables debug output
+.IP "Setting FDISK_DEBUG=0xffff enables debug output."

.SH "SEE ALSO"
.BR cfdisk (8),
@@ -247,6 +247,7 @@ enables debug output
.BR parted (8),
.BR partprobe (8),
.BR kpartx (8)
+
.SH AVAILABILITY
The fdisk command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
--
1.7.0.4

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From 37aa59b07700d7028b7f2c1d4ed200eb468c36d0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2013 11:34:25 +0200
Subject: [PATCH 2/3] docs: fix wording and formatting of man page for dmesg

Signed-off-by: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
---
sys-utils/dmesg.1 | 92 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------------------
1 files changed, 47 insertions(+), 45 deletions(-)

diff --git a/sys-utils/dmesg.1 b/sys-utils/dmesg.1
index ce186d8..4500af9 100644
--- a/sys-utils/dmesg.1
+++ b/sys-utils/dmesg.1
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ dmesg \-\-console-off
.B dmesg
is used to examine or control the kernel ring buffer.
.PP
-The default action is to read all messages from kernel ring buffer.
+The default action is to read all messages from the kernel ring buffer.
.SH OPTIONS
The \-\-clear, \-\-read-clear, \-\-console-on, \-\-console-off and
\-\-console-level options are mutually exclusive.
@@ -28,25 +28,25 @@ The \-\-clear, \-\-read-clear, \-\-console-on, \-\-console-off and
.IP "\fB\-C\fR, \fB\-\-clear\fR"
Clear the ring buffer.
.IP "\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-read-clear\fR"
-Clear the ring buffer contents after printing.
+Clear the ring buffer after first printing its contents.
.IP "\fB\-D\fR, \fB\-\-console-off\fR"
Disable printing messages to the console.
.IP "\fB\-d\fR, \fB\-\-show-delta\fR"
-Display the timestamp and time delta spent between messages. If used
+Display the timestamp and the time delta spent between messages. If used
together with
.B \-\-notime
then only the time delta without the timestamp is printed.
.IP "\fB\-e\fR, \fB\-\-reltime\fR"
-Display the local time and delta in human readable format.
+Display the local time and the delta in human-readable format.
.IP "\fB\-E\fR, \fB\-\-console-on\fR"
Enable printing messages to the console.
.IP "\fB\-F\fR, \fB\-\-file \fIfile\fR"
-Read log from
+Read the messages from the given
.IR file .
.IP "\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-facility \fIlist\fR"
-Restrict output to defined (comma separated)
+Restrict output to the given (comma-separated)
.I list
-of facilities. For example
+of facilities. For example:
.PP
.RS 14
dmesg \-\-facility=daemon
@@ -57,19 +57,20 @@ see
.B dmesg \-\-help
output.
.IP "\fB\-H\fR, \fB\-\-human\fR"
-Enable human readable output. See also \fB\-\-color\fR, \fB\-\-reltime\fR
+Enable human-readable output. See also \fB\-\-color\fR, \fB\-\-reltime\fR
and \fB\-\-nopager\fR.
.IP "\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR"
Print a help text and exit.
.IP "\fB\-k\fR, \fB\-\-kernel\fR"
Print kernel messages.
-.IP "\fB\-L\fR, \fB\-\-color\fR [=\fIwhen\fP]"
-Colorize important messages, the optional argumet \fIwhen\fP is 'auto', 'never'
-or 'always'. If the \fIwhen\fP argument is omitted then the default is 'auto'.
+.IP "\fB\-L\fR, \fB\-\-color\fR[=\fIwhen\fR]"
+Colorize important messages. The optional argument \fIwhen\fP can be \fBauto\fR,
+\fBnever\fR or \fBalways\fR. If the \fIwhen\fR argument is omitted,
+then it defaults to \fBauto\fR.
.IP "\fB\-l\fR, \fB\-\-level \fIlist\fR"
-Restrict output to defined (comma separated)
+Restrict output to the given (comma-separated)
.I list
-of levels. For example
+of levels. For example:
.PP
.RS 14
dmesg \-\-level=err,warn
@@ -81,7 +82,7 @@ output.
.IP "\fB\-n\fR, \fB\-\-console-level \fIlevel\fR
Set the
.I level
-at which logging of messages is done to the console. The
+at which printing of messages is done to the console. The
.I level
is a level number or abbreviation of the level name. For all supported
levels see
@@ -105,24 +106,24 @@ will
.I not
print or clear the kernel ring buffer.
.IP "\fB\-P\fR, \fB\-\-nopager\fR"
-Do not pipe output into a pager, the pager is enabled for \fB\-\-human\fR output.
+Do not pipe output into a pager. A pager is enabled by default for \fB\-\-human\fR output.
.IP "\fB\-r\fR, \fB\-\-raw\fR"
-Print the raw message buffer, i.e., do not strip the log level prefixes.
+Print the raw message buffer, i.e. do not strip the log-level prefixes.

-Note that the real raw format depends on method how
+Note that the real raw format depends on the method how
.BR dmesg (1)
-reads kernel messages. The /dev/kmsg uses different format than
+reads kernel messages. The /dev/kmsg device uses a different format than
.BR syslog (2) .
-For backward compatibility
+For backward compatibility,
.BR dmesg (1)
-returns data always in
+returns data always in the
.BR syslog (2)
-format. The real raw data from /dev/kmsg is possible to read for example by
-command 'dd if=/dev/kmsg iflag=nonblock'.
+format. It is possible to read the real raw data from /dev/kmsg by, for example,
+the command 'dd if=/dev/kmsg iflag=nonblock'.
.IP "\fB\-S\fR, \fB\-\-syslog\fR"
-Force to use
+Force \fBdmesg\fR to use the
.BR syslog (2)
-kernel interface to read kernel messages. The default is to use /dev/kmsg rather
+kernel interface to read kernel messages. The default is to use /dev/kmsg rather
than
.BR syslog (2)
since kernel 3.5.0.
@@ -131,11 +132,12 @@ Use a buffer of
.I size
to query the kernel ring buffer. This is 16392 by default. (The default
kernel syslog buffer size was 4096 at first, 8192 since 1.3.54, 16384 since
-2.1.113.) If you have set the kernel buffer to be larger than the default
+2.1.113.) If you have set the kernel buffer to be larger than the default,
then this option can be used to view the entire buffer.
.IP "\fB\-T\fR, \fB\-\-ctime\fR"
-Print human readable timestamps. The timestamp could be inaccurate!
+Print human-readable timestamps.
.IP
+Be aware that the timestamp could be inaccurate!
The
.B time
source used for the logs is
@@ -149,32 +151,32 @@ Print userspace messages.
.IP "\fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR"
Output version information and exit.
.IP "\fB\-w\fR, \fB\-\-follow\fR"
-Wait for new messages. This feature is supported on systems with readable
-/dev/kmsg only (since kernel 3.5.0).
+Wait for new messages. This feature is supported only on systems with
+a readable /dev/kmsg (since kernel 3.5.0).
.IP "\fB\-x\fR, \fB\-\-decode\fR"
-Decode facility and level (priority) number to human readable prefixes.
+Decode facility and level (priority) numbers to human-readable prefixes.
.IP "\fB\-\-time\-format\fR \fIformat\fR"
-Print time stam using format
-.IR ctime ,
-.IR delta ,
-.I reltime
+Print timestamps using the given \fIformat\fR, which can be
+.BR ctime ,
+.BR reltime ,
+.BR delta
or
-.IR iso .
-The three first time formats are aliases of time format specific options.
+.BR iso .
+The first three formats are aliases of the time-format-specific options.
The
-.I iso
-is a
+.B iso
+format is a
.B dmesg
-implementation of ISO-8601 timestamp format. Purpose of this format is
-to make comparing of timestamps in between two system, and other parsing,
-easy. The defition of timestamp is YYYY-MM-DD<T stands for date and time
-separator>HH:MM:SS,<microseconds><-+><GMT-0 timezone offset>.
+implementation of the ISO-8601 timestamp format. The purpose of this format is
+to make the comparing of timestamps between two systems, and any other parsing,
+easy. The definition of the \fBiso\fR timestamp is:
+YYYY-MM-DD<T>HH:MM:SS,<microseconds><-+><timezone offset from UTC>.
.IP
The
-.I iso
-time format has the same issue as
-.IR ctime ,
-the time may be inaccurate if a system is suspended and resumed.
+.B iso
+format has the same issue as
+.BR ctime :
+the time may be inaccurate when a system is suspended and resumed.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR syslogd (8)
.SH AUTHORS
--
1.7.0.4

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From 0c00be316b9929028fbcf635d013d736fec727a2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 2013 12:09:10 +0200
Subject: [PATCH 3/3] docs: make description of --activate clearer on man page of sfdisk

Signed-off-by: Benno Schulenberg <bensberg@justemail.net>
---
fdisks/sfdisk.8 | 34 ++++++++++++++++++----------------
1 files changed, 18 insertions(+), 16 deletions(-)

diff --git a/fdisks/sfdisk.8 b/fdisks/sfdisk.8
index 2b166fa..b7bb5f8 100644
--- a/fdisks/sfdisk.8
+++ b/fdisks/sfdisk.8
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
sfdisk \- partition table manipulator for Linux
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B sfdisk
-.RI [ options ]
+.RB [ options ]
.I device
.br
.B sfdisk \-s
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ designed for large partitions. In these cases use the more advanced GNU

Note that
.B sfdisk
-does not align partitions to block device I/O limits. This functionality is
+does not align partitions to block-device I/O limits. This functionality is
provided by
.BR fdisk (8).

@@ -223,37 +223,39 @@ and change nothing else. (Probably this fifth partition
is called /dev/hdb5, but you are free to call it something else,
like `/my_equipment/disks/2/5' or so).
.TP
-\fB\-A\fR, \fB\-\-activate\fR [\fIdevice\fR or \fIpartition number\fR]
-The activate option will turn on bootable flag.
+\fB\-A\fR, \fB\-\-activate\fR[=\fIdevice_or_number\fR]
+Switch on the bootable flag.
.IP
-The activate option takes optional argument. When the option argument is
-not defined command will list partitions that has bootable flag set on
-for device given as command argument. For example.
+This option takes an optional argument. When no option argument is given,
+the command will list the partitions that have the bootable flag set
+for the device specified as command argument. For example:
.IP
.nf
.if t .ft CW
% sfdisk --activate /dev/sda
.fi
-When the activate has option argument, and command argument list, the
-partitions defined as command argument will be set to have bootable flag.
-Other partitions for the device are clered not to have bootable flag.
-For example the partitions 1 and 4 are set bootable, while 2 and 3 are
-cleared.
+.IP
+When a device name is given as option argument, the partitions specified
+as command argument will have the bootable flag switched on.
+Other partitions for the same device will have the bootable flag cleared.
+For example, with the following command the partitions 1 and 4 are set
+to be bootable, while 2 and 3 are cleared:
.IP
.nf
.if t .ft CW
% sfdisk --activate=/dev/sda 1 4
.fi
-If only a single partition must be activated then the partition number
-must be given as option argument, and device as command argument. For example.
+.IP
+If only a single partition needs to be activated, then the partition number
+must be given as option argument, and the device as command argument. For example:
.IP
.nf
.if t .ft CW
% sfdisk --activate=1 /dev/sda
.fi
.IP
-The activate functionality is turned on when the program invocation name is
-.IR activate .
+The activate option is turned by default on when the program's invocation name is
+.BR activate .
.TP
.BR \-c ", " \-\-id " \fInumber\fR [\fIId\fR]"
If no \fIId\fR argument given: print the partition Id of the indicated
--
1.7.0.4