Here’s how to know how a command is executed in Linux:

1. Issue the following command at the terminal –

strace -c <absolute path to the command>

for example, to know how ‘man’ command is executed, issue the following command at the terminal –

strace -c /usr/bin/man

The output will show you the system calls during the execution of the command. If you want to view more detailed output, use the command without the ‘-c’ option.