[SOLVED] man pages

equalizer876 · 2020-12-28 15:41:26

I've already read through https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Man_page . Though I only need the package man-db to use man commands. It works without "man-pages" package. Why do we even need the package man-pages? I like to keep my system small and simple.

Last edited by equalizer876 (2020-12-28 19:21:15)

seth · 2020-12-28 15:49:03

man-pages contains … drumroll… a bunch of manpages for standard stuff…

equalizer876 · 2020-12-28 17:25:45

Nice I didn't know this (jk). As I said man pages work without "man-pages". I don't even know why you would need the additional "man-pages".

Last edited by equalizer876 (2020-12-28 17:27:06)

seth · 2020-12-28 17:40:28

Because you want to look at those manpages?
Whos says you "need" that? You "need" that if yo want to eg. "man 2 fork" or "man 1p cat"...

If you know what the package provides, why does this thread even exist?

Last edited by seth (2020-12-28 17:40:43)

equalizer876 · 2020-12-28 19:18:43

seth wrote:

eg. "man 2 fork" or "man 1p cat"...

I see. Thanks, man. So man-db only provides access to base manpages while man-pages provides all. But without man-db we can't use manuals at all. This explanation sounds good. A shame some parts of the arch wiki are not deep enough. Such as Swap files and encrypted Swap. (other topic)

Last edited by equalizer876 (2020-12-28 19:28:38)

eschwartz · 2020-12-28 19:29:58

equalizer876 wrote:

So man-db only provides access to base manpages while man-pages provides all.

No... "man-db" only provides the /usr/bin/man application used for opening manpages, while "man-pages" provides a collection of commonly useful manpages for the operating system itself (the kernel and libc functions, the 1p section describing many POSIX things, etc.)

It is the responsibility of individual programs not part of the man-pages collection, to provide their own manpage when you install the program itself.

Trilby · 2020-12-28 19:56:02

FYI, these are the 3576 pages you'd be missing without that package:

pacman -Fl man-pages | sed -n 's|.*/\([^\.]*\).*\.\([0-9]\).*|\1 (\2)|p' | sort

GSMiller · 2020-12-29 11:07:55

Trilby wrote:

FYI, these are the 3576 pages you'd be missing without that package:
pacman -Fl man-pages | sed -n 's|.*/\([^\.]*\).*\.\([0-9]\).*|\1 (\2)|p' | sort

That is a lot. Cool oneliner!

equalizer876, the installed package is 5.64 MiB. This is not so much for so much information you get.
It includes man-pages for ls, mv and such. It is useful.

seth · 2020-12-29 11:54:50

Nottrilby wrote:

It includes man-pages for ls, mv and such.

% pacman -Qo /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1.gz
% pacman -Qo /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1p.gz

coreutils ships manpages for the, well, core utils - the variants in man-pages are the POSIX ones.

There's obviously more in the man-pages package, though.
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/

GSMiller · 2021-01-06 11:10:34

seth wrote:

There's obviously more in the man-pages package, though.
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/

Yes of course, 3576. I was only giving some popular example.

Arch Linux

#1 2020-12-28 15:41:26

[SOLVED] man pages

#2 2020-12-28 15:49:03

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#3 2020-12-28 17:25:45

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#4 2020-12-28 17:40:28

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#5 2020-12-28 19:18:43

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#6 2020-12-28 19:29:58

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#7 2020-12-28 19:56:02

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#8 2020-12-29 11:07:55

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#9 2020-12-29 11:54:50

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

#10 2021-01-06 11:10:34

Re: [SOLVED] man pages

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