Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

dogbait · 2006-03-29 11:11:32

As you all might know, Arch believes in having man pages all the way, with almost no packages having their additional documentation (found in 'usr/share/doc' and '/usr/doc').

The reason given is to keep the distro lightweight, however this does remove a lot of extra documentation and example files that developers provide for their programs.

What I'm asking here is whether people would like the extra documentation or not. For a distro which doesn't hand hold they would be useful. On the other hand, their exclusion saves some disk space.

pressh · 2006-03-29 11:29:08

Why isn't there an option: "I don't care" ?

at least, my vote goes to "I don't care" ==>> so I made it a no

lumiwa · 2006-03-29 12:29:16

dogbait wrote:

As you all might know, Arch believes in having man pages all the way, with almost no packages having their additional documentation (found in 'usr/share/doc' and '/usr/doc').
The reason given is to keep the distro lightweight, however this does remove a lot of extra documentation and example files that developers provide for their programs.
What I'm asking here is whether people would like the extra documentation or not. For a distro which doesn't hand hold they would be useful. On the other hand, their exclusion saves some disk space.

Yes, I want it.

Neuro · 2006-03-29 12:34:44

I don't really care. And since you can find almost everything on the net, I voted no.

Cerebral · 2006-03-29 12:47:03

dogbait wrote:

On the other hand, their exclusion saves some disk space.

It's not just disk space, but bandwidth too. Those of us with less-than-uber connections prefer the packages to be as lean as possible.

Additionally, I haven't yet had a program I couldn't look up documentation on the net somewhere. I voted no.

tomk · 2006-03-29 13:03:44

No for me too. Apart from the ease of finding what you need on the net, you're talking about an element of the Arch philosophy. In other words,
Arch + docs + info + etc != Arch.

Moo-Crumpus · 2006-03-29 13:05:21

Nay.

DDspeed · 2006-03-29 13:14:23

I've never really used the info command help files. when man isn't enough I went directly to google/forums/wiki, so I voted for no.

stavrosg · 2006-03-29 13:17:24

Don't care, usually, but a definite NO where the most extensive documentation is the one I usually do not use. ;-)

jaboua · 2006-03-29 13:33:33

I voted no.

I used it some before, just for pyqt examples or something like that back on fedora, but not anymore... I now use manpages for documentation of apps and the web for tutorials, works fine for me.

dtw · 2006-03-29 14:05:54

This has been discussed about 4 times on the ML as well so I suggest you look at the archives for even more arguements against!

clarence · 2006-03-29 14:29:57

it appears to me that anyone who has the motivation, skill and strikingly good looks to install Arch is not likely the sort of person who will need docs installed. As opposed to say ubuntususefedora, who are actively targeting experienced as well as new linux users.

dogbait · 2006-03-29 14:45:12

But how many new users access documentation outside manpages? Not many I'd wager. A lot of the content in doc consists of example config files and scripts - precisely the sort of detailed information that experienced users need.

lumiwa · 2006-03-29 14:45:17

clarence wrote:

it appears to me that anyone who has the motivation, skill and strikingly good looks to install Arch is not likely the sort of person who will need docs installed. As opposed to say ubuntususefedora, who are actively targeting experienced as well as new linux users.

IMO what is wrong if I have documentation for Shorewall for example in /usr/share/doc? Why I need to go everytime if I need something to the web page? It is my opinion.

Romashka · 2006-03-29 15:25:50

See bug #3459.

Dusty · 2006-03-29 15:31:24

Me, I could never figure out how to use the info viewer, that thing is fricking scary. man pages all the way!

Well, google serves me better than man, now.

Dusty

raskolnikov · 2006-03-29 16:16:17

Yes. I have some times without Internet, and manpages for GNU utilities are a joke.

phrakture · 2006-03-29 16:28:20

As much as you think this is original content, it's not. People can banter about the relative merits of info docs all day long, problem is, none of the devs want them included, so any sort of vote is vetoed.

PKGBUILDs *can* include a 'keepdocs' option, but that is not to be used all the time, it is there in case man pages fail (i.e. 'man grub' to see what I mean)

On a side note, there is also info2man, which can be used to just get rid of the info pages for GNU utilities.

raskolnikov · 2006-03-29 17:51:17

Great news, I will look at this program

iphitus · 2006-03-29 23:06:06

If you want them so desperately, use info2man in your PKGBUILDs to install them. Otherwise, no it's not happening.

Info2man is in the aur.

dogbait · 2006-03-30 12:45:12

phrakturem, I don't think this is original content, I checked the past threads and though an ongoing poll will be interesting.

iphitus, thanks for the pointer regarding info2man, will take a look at it.

IceRAM · 2006-03-30 13:28:54

short note: I think info2man should be somehow pointed in Arch Packaging... something.. don't remember where this info was... (in the Wiki).

Arch Linux

#1 2006-03-29 11:11:32

Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#2 2006-03-29 11:29:08

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#3 2006-03-29 12:29:16

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#4 2006-03-29 12:34:44

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#5 2006-03-29 12:47:03

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#6 2006-03-29 13:03:44

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#7 2006-03-29 13:05:21

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#8 2006-03-29 13:14:23

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#9 2006-03-29 13:17:24

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

#10 2006-03-29 13:33:33

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#15 2006-03-29 15:25:50

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#16 2006-03-29 15:31:24

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#17 2006-03-29 16:16:17

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#18 2006-03-29 16:28:20

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#22 2006-03-30 13:28:54

Re: Do you want /usr/share/doc (ie. info command) to be made ava

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