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Diffstat (limited to 'system/man-db/README.Slackware')
-rw-r--r-- | system/man-db/README.Slackware | 50 |
1 files changed, 50 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/system/man-db/README.Slackware b/system/man-db/README.Slackware new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..f0eb6b57ca --- /dev/null +++ b/system/man-db/README.Slackware @@ -0,0 +1,50 @@ +By default, man-db can be installed alongside Slackware's man package +without conflict, as it installs its binaries and man pages into +/opt/man-db. After installation, either log out and back in, or source +/etc/profile.d/man-db.sh in your shell (this adjusts $PATH so the man +command from /opt/man-db will be found first). + +Alternately, man-db can be built as a replacement for Slackware's +man package. To do this, set USR=yes in the script's environment, +and "removepkg man" before installing man-db. No profile scripts are +installed in this case. + +When installing man-db, the doinst.sh script may take several minutes to +run. This is because it's indexing all the man pages on the system. Also, +a cron job is installed in /etc/cron.daily, which adds newly-installed +man pages to the database. The index speeds up searching via "man -K", +"man -k", or "apropos". It's fast enough that "man -K" is now actually +useful... the disadvantage is that newly-installed man pages won't be +found in these searches until the database has been updated, so any time +you install new man pages, you'll want to run "mandb" as root, or wait +for cron to do it for you (if you don't do this, the new pages can still +be displayed, they just won't be searchable). The indexing runs quickly +once the initial database has been created, so the cron job or manual +update shouldn't bring your system to its knees. + +The database is located in /var/cache/man, and on a full Slackware install +will be approximately 5MB in size. During index creation, approximately +10MB in /var is used. If you decide to removepkg man-db, you'll probably +also want to get rid of its database with "rm -rf /var/cache/man". If +the database gets corrupted somehow, it can be regenerated from scratch +by running "mandb -c" or just reinstalling the man-db package. + +Although man-db supports caching formatted pages ("cat" pages), it's +disabled in this build, to make man-db behave more like Slackware's man +(which supports caching, but it's disabled). On modern (and even 10+ +year old) systems, the small amount of extra time it takes to format +a man page every time it's viewed is probably not worth the headaches +caused by stale cat pages. + +Unlike some distro packages of man-db, this build doesn't install man or +mandb setuid. This prevents caching cat pages from working (see above), +and prevents man from automatically adding new man pages to the database +the first time a user views them (they will be indexed by the cron job, +or by root manually running "mandb", if you're impatient). + +A word about i18n support: the whole reason I packaged man-db is because +Slackware's man can't handle Japanese man pages, and I couldn't come +up with a way to make them work after several hours of research and +man.conf editing. With man-db, they Just Work, with LANG=ja_JP.UTF-8 +(now all I have to do is learn to read Japanese). In general, UTF-8 +locales are preferred for man-db, although non-UTF-8 is also supported. |