The removal of doc

Lord Illidan · 2008-08-06 09:23:01

Personally, I'd like having docs available. I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of package management, but I don't think it would be such a pain to have seperate packages containing the docs and info, like gcc-info, for instance. That way, installing documents is kept strictly optional, and people who don't have enough space can strip out the excess documentation. What's wrong with this methodology? Apart from having too many packages - like Debian, all we're talking about is 1 more package, and doubtlessly only for certain software, not for every piece of software in the repositories.

shining · 2008-08-06 10:00:51

Lord Illidan wrote:

Personally, I'd like having docs available. I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of package management, but I don't think it would be such a pain to have seperate packages containing the docs and info, like gcc-info, for instance. That way, installing documents is kept strictly optional, and people who don't have enough space can strip out the excess documentation. What's wrong with this methodology? Apart from having too many packages - like Debian, all we're talking about is 1 more package, and doubtlessly only for certain software, not for every piece of software in the repositories.

The problem is that dozens of users kept complaining about docs not being available, and no one even bothered to try to improve the situation by making more -doc packages.
If you don't think it would be such a pain, please do it, you would solve all problems, and everyone will love you :
1) developers who don't want to mess with info docs (having to strip them when they are insanely huge, having to deal with install-info crap)
2) users who don't want info docs on their system
3) users who want them

And users who don't care, well, they don't care...

Lord Illidan · 2008-08-06 10:12:50

Sure, if you tell me how to start, I'll see what I can do. I've never written an arch package in my life, but I'd like to contribute. If you give me a few hints on how to make doc packages, I'll be all set.

Garns · 2008-08-06 12:54:17

Things you probably want to read:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS … ild_System
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The … guidelines
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ABS … _Explained
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arc … _%28AUR%29

Some other wikipages linked from there, which I didn't post .

It might be helpful to take a look at some of the info packages in aur and at the emacs PKGBUILD.

jcolinzheng · 2008-08-06 13:06:33

Lord Illidan wrote:

Sure, if you tell me how to start, I'll see what I can do. I've never written an arch package in my life, but I'd like to contribute. If you give me a few hints on how to make doc packages, I'll be all set.

We could add a build_docs function in PKGBUILD. If build_docs is missing, the default behavior is to use
find $startdir/pkg/usr/share -type d -name 'doc''

makepkg will generate two separate packages, x and x-doc. Users will then only install docs as they need, as done in Debian.

This way nothing needs to be done for most package maintainers, where the docs are in the standard locations.

Lord Illidan · 2008-08-06 13:39:43

But can I avoid compiling the main package? Is there an option that just generates the docs? (Eg, I am not going to stay compiling OpenOffice!)

shining · 2008-08-06 14:58:19

Lord Illidan wrote:

But can I avoid compiling the main package? Is there an option that just generates the docs? (Eg, I am not going to stay compiling OpenOffice!)

Not if you follow Garns' instructions.
You just have to write PKGBUILDs that only install / copy the docs (and thus don't build the whole program).

jcolinzheng's proposal however involves first hacking makepkg for splitting -doc package, and then rebuilding everything.

Lord Illidan · 2008-08-06 15:56:16

I'll see if I can get a pkg done tonight then. Starting with something easy, of course.

Garns · 2008-08-06 16:21:18

jcolinzheng wrote:

Lord Illidan wrote:
Sure, if you tell me how to start, I'll see what I can do. I've never written an arch package in my life, but I'd like to contribute. If you give me a few hints on how to make doc packages, I'll be all set.
We could add a build_docs function in PKGBUILD. If build_docs is missing, the default behavior is to use
find $startdir/pkg/usr/share -type d -name 'doc''
makepkg will generate two separate packages, x and x-doc. Users will then only install docs as they need, as done in Debian.
This way nothing needs to be done for most package maintainers, where the docs are in the standard locations.

This resembles FS#10246

But I support what was mentioned there already, while we are at it we should go for generic split packages.

I don't think it would be a good idea to generate a -doc package fully automatic (generating one if nothig as specified), as it should be the packager's decision, if he splits the docs, builds one package with docs and binaries or just strips the docs.

What I don't really get is the space issue some people seem to have, I mean:

gawk-info-3.1.6-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz: 373K
sed-info-4.15-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz: 28K

$ pacman -Si gcc-info
Installed Size : 1061.63 K

If you just hate .info and want it to burn in hell, fine by me . But regarding space I don't really see the issue here.

shining · 2008-08-06 17:17:32

Garns wrote:

But I support what was mentioned there already, while we are at it we should go for generic split packages.

If you (or anyone else) is interested, here is the last big thread about it :
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacm … 12123.html
But I am not sure what the summary of this long discussion was

What I don't really get is the space issue some people seem to have, I mean:
gawk-info-3.1.6-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz: 373K
sed-info-4.15-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz: 28K

$ pacman -Si gcc-info
Installed Size : 1061.63 K
If you just hate .info and want it to burn in hell, fine by me . But regarding space I don't really see the issue here.

Hm, maybe the problem is that !docs option doesn't only remove info docs, but all docs.
From makepkg.conf :
#-- Info and doc directories to remove (if option set correctly above)
DOC_DIRS=(usr/{,share/}{info,doc,gtk-doc} opt/*/{info,doc,gtk-doc})

So when considering all that, it can be insanely huge sometimes:
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch … 05923.html

But well every developer/packager is free to have docs disabled by using OPTIONS=(... !docs ...) in makepkg.conf or options=(... !docs ...) in the pkgbuild.

Last edited by shining (2008-08-06 17:18:14)

Garns · 2008-08-06 18:17:49

shining wrote:

Garns wrote:
But I support what was mentioned there already, while we are at it we should go for generic split packages.
If you (or anyone else) is interested, here is the last big thread about it :
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacm … 12123.html
But I am not sure what the summary of this long discussion was

I think it didn't really come to any conclusion, I'll read it again later though.

What I don't really get is the space issue some people seem to have, I mean:
gawk-info-3.1.6-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz: 373K
sed-info-4.15-1-i686.pkg.tar.gz: 28K

$ pacman -Si gcc-info
Installed Size : 1061.63 K
If you just hate .info and want it to burn in hell, fine by me . But regarding space I don't really see the issue here.
Hm, maybe the problem is that !docs option doesn't only remove info docs, but all docs.
From makepkg.conf :
#-- Info and doc directories to remove (if option set correctly above)
DOC_DIRS=(usr/{,share/}{info,doc,gtk-doc} opt/*/{info,doc,gtk-doc})
So when considering all that, it can be insanely huge sometimes:
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch … 05923.html
But well every developer/packager is free to have docs disabled by using OPTIONS=(... !docs ...) in makepkg.conf or options=(... !docs ...) in the pkgbuild.

It should be up to the developer. Including the info pages for grub, core-utils, etc. might be useful. Blowing up the glib package to 5 times its size, might not be. And I think the Arch devs are reasonable enough to decide this for their packages.

eliott's proposal (keep info pages for core packages) looks like a good rule of thumb there.

olive · 2008-08-06 20:36:35

Some people want to spare space with the removal of docs. What would I do is to package the doc separately but only if this take a significant amount of space. For many package the gain of space will be negligible and this would put confusion.

In any case I think that the doc should be available; I do not like very much the idea to split packages; but I could live wit the docs in another package; but the current situation where the docs is often not available at all is not an option in my opinion.

catwell · 2008-08-07 00:19:03

I had written this some time ago. It was for the old makepkg so it would probably need a few changes, but if you're going to build a lot of split packages you might want to use it.

Allan · 2008-08-07 01:16:57

Garns wrote:

shining wrote:
Garns wrote:
But I support what was mentioned there already, while we are at it we should go for generic split packages.
If you (or anyone else) is interested, here is the last big thread about it :
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacm … 12123.html
But I am not sure what the summary of this long discussion was
I think it didn't really come to any conclusion, I'll read it again later though.

For me, the conclusion it can to was that people need to provide a complete PKGBUILD for their idea on how to split a package. Some of the ideas were interesting at first glance but were either too messy or had problems that were not well stated. I am starting the whole splitting pakcage thing again now pacman-3.2 is out so maybe an option to split doc packages out will happen at the same time...

k2t0f12d · 2008-08-07 04:51:06

Splitting packages that were otherwise meant to build in one go doesn't sound very KISS, especially for the purpose of removing documentation. Not to mention the overhead of extra work it would require. Even if that is implemented, it should be switchable by conf or environment var, so you can have pacman install corresponding doc packages for each binary package or only install docs explicitly.

Allan · 2008-08-07 06:01:05

k2t0f12d wrote:

Splitting packages that were otherwise meant to build in one go doesn't sound very KISS

Agreed, and the split packages for docs would very likely never become mainstream in the arch repos. But for packages that contain a lot of documentation, automatically splitting off the docs to another package (via a makepkg option) would be useful.

Stefan Husmann · 2008-08-07 08:23:42

catwell wrote:

I had written this some time ago. It was for the old makepkg so it would probably need a few changes, but if you're going to build a lot of split packages you might want to use it.

Great! Never saw this before. Will try it this evening.

k2t0f12d · 2008-08-07 09:26:37

Allan wrote:

(...) automatically splitting off the docs to another package (via a makepkg option) would be useful.

So you are actually only talking about a makepkg feature, not an official repository policy?

Allan · 2008-08-07 09:33:12

k2t0f12d wrote:

Allan wrote:
(...) automatically splitting off the docs to another package (via a makepkg option) would be useful.
So you are actually only talking about a makepkg feature, not an official repository policy?

Very much so.

Arch Linux

#26 2008-08-06 09:23:01

Re: The removal of doc

#27 2008-08-06 10:00:51

Re: The removal of doc

#28 2008-08-06 10:12:50

Re: The removal of doc

#29 2008-08-06 12:54:17

Re: The removal of doc

#30 2008-08-06 13:06:33

Re: The removal of doc

#31 2008-08-06 13:39:43

Re: The removal of doc

#32 2008-08-06 14:58:19

Re: The removal of doc

#33 2008-08-06 15:56:16

Re: The removal of doc

#34 2008-08-06 16:21:18

Re: The removal of doc

#35 2008-08-06 17:17:32

Re: The removal of doc

#36 2008-08-06 18:17:49

Re: The removal of doc

#37 2008-08-06 20:36:35

Re: The removal of doc

#38 2008-08-07 00:19:03

Re: The removal of doc

#39 2008-08-07 01:16:57

Re: The removal of doc

#40 2008-08-07 04:51:06

Re: The removal of doc

#41 2008-08-07 06:01:05

Re: The removal of doc

#42 2008-08-07 08:23:42

Re: The removal of doc

#43 2008-08-07 09:26:37

Re: The removal of doc

#44 2008-08-07 09:33:12

Re: The removal of doc

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