who maintains the man pages?
in [General Linux]
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From: John Hasler on 15 Mar 2010 13:17 T writes: > What good would that do if I do not know where to send it to? Where did you get the program? -- John Hasler jhasler(a)newsguy.com Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI USA
From: Sidney Lambe on 15 Mar 2010 13:28 On comp.os.linux.misc, unruh <unruh(a)wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote: > On 2010-03-15, J G Miller <miller(a)yoyo.ORG> wrote: > >> On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:55:26 -0400, DesPen stated: >> >>> Todd <todd(a)invalid.com> writes: >>> >>>> Hi All, >>>> >>>> Who maintains the "man" pages? The author of the program or >>>> somewhere/someone else? >>> >>> Man pages are created by the program author. >> >> The manual page should be created by the author of the program >> or the team creating the software package. >> >> However this is not always the case. >> >> For example the manual page for tar on Debian based >> distributions states >> >> QUOTE >> >> BUGS >> >> The GNU folks, in general, abhor man pages, and create >> info documents instead. Unfortunately, the info document >> describing tar is licensed under the GFDL with invariant >> cover texts, which makes it impossible to include any >> text from that document in this man page. Most of the >> text in this document was automatically extracted from >> the usage text in the source. It may not completely >> describe all features of the program. >> >> UNQUOTE >> >> Or for quite a number of manual pages on Debian based >> distributions, by the original package maintainer. >> >> QUOTE >> >> AUTHOR >> >> This manual page was written by Joey Hess, for the >> Debian GNU/ Linux system. >> >> UNQUOTE >> >> Does anybody ever bother to read Info pages? > > It is one of those religious wars, like emacs/vi. And no, I > suspect man pages are far more often read than info pages, not > least because the info useage is so so cluncky ( unless you > happen to love emacs) The info reader does indeed suck. That's why you go to: http://www.gnu.org/manual/manual.html And locate and download a copy of the manual in one long web page or plain text file and put it in /usr/doc or /usr/share/doc (you may have to create a directory there for it) or some other appropriate location and use a script like this to make the ones you refer to all the time readily accessible: The manual for an app may be found elsewhere, like on the app's website or in the source or binary package. #!/bin/bash links="/usr/bin/links -html-numbered-links 1" # links is a textmode web browser and nvi a text editor # and less a pager echo echo "a) edit script" echo "b) software" echo "c) shellscript" echo "d) netcat" echo "e) proc" echo "f) links" echo "g) vi" echo "h) sed" echo "i) VM" echo "j) nag" echo "k) textools" echo "l) print1" echo "m) print2" echo "n) rute" echo "o) screen" echo "p) slrn" echo "q) slrn score" echo "r) wget" echo read -s -n1 aa case "$aa" in a) nvi /usr/local/bin/doc.sh ;; b) $links /usr/doc/linux/Software-Building-HOWTO.html ;; c) less /usr/doc/linux/abs-guide.txt ;; d) less /usr/doc/netcat/README ;; e) less /usr/src/linux-2.4.22/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt ;; f) $links /usr/doc/links-0.98/manual-0.82-en/index.html ;; g) $links /usr/doc/nvi-1.79/vi-faq-1.html ;; h) $links /usr/doc/sed-4.1.5/sed.html ;; i) $links /usr/doc/linux/Vmware.html ;; j) $links /usr/doc/linux/nag2/index.html ;; k) $links /usr/doc/texttools/texttools.html ;; l) $links /usr/doc/HOWTO/Printing-HOWTO.html ;; m) $links /usr/doc/HOWTO/Printing-Usage-HOWTO.html ;; # This one brings up the index page in a directory full # of webpages belonging to a single e-book - you could # also just use the directory name to bring up in a menu. # with all the web pages there listed. Same for a dir full # of relevant text files. n) $links /root/rute/node1.html ;; o) $links /usr/doc/screen-4.0.3/screen.html ;; p) less /usr/doc/slrn-0.9.8.1/manual.txt ;; r) $links /usr/doc/wget-1.10.2/wget.html ;; esac exit 0 Sid
From: John Hasler on 15 Mar 2010 13:28 Todd writes: > I wanted to add a couple of lines to a man pages, of course! Then do so and send your patch to the author of the man page, the author of the program, or to whoever you got the program from. -- John Hasler jhasler(a)newsguy.com Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI USA
From: Keith Keller on 15 Mar 2010 13:33 On 2010-03-15, J G Miller <miller(a)yoyo.ORG> wrote: > > Does anybody ever bother to read Info pages? If I am desperate and it is clear that the man page is not accurate I will read the info page. But I will swear most of the time using it. :) --keith -- kkeller-usenet(a)wombat.san-francisco.ca.us (try just my userid to email me) AOLSFAQ=http://www.therockgarden.ca/aolsfaq.txt see X- headers for PGP signature information
From: Grant Edwards on 15 Mar 2010 13:49
On 2010-03-15, unruh <unruh(a)wormhole.physics.ubc.ca> wrote: >> Does anybody ever bother to read Info pages? Only as a last resort. > It is one of those religious wars, like emacs/vi. And no, I suspect > man pages are far more often read than info pages, not least because > the info useage is so so cluncky ( unless you happen to love emacs) I've been a decades-long emacs user, and I still hate info pages. Navigation is excruciately clumsy and they're I find them impossible to search. -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Catsup and Mustard all at over the place! It's the gmail.com Human Hamburger! |