man(1) oddity - was: HEADS UP: bzip2(1) compression for manpages...

[Andy Farkas]

On Mon, 19 May 2003, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> > A normal user has to wait staring at a flashing cursor for 11.5 seconds
> > before *anything* happens, but root is told "Formatting page, please
> > wait..."
> >
> > Am I explaining it enough?
> >
> You're not being quite right here.  Just to demonstrate things,
> take a 4-STABLE box, then temporary rename /usr/share/man/cat8 to
> something else, and try "man 8 ppp"; you'll be presented with the
> output shortly after (without any message), and much quicker than
> after 11.5 seconds, as you trying to tell me.

# grep CPU /var/run/dmesg.boot
CPU: Pentium Pro (199.74-MHz 686-class CPU)
#
# sysctl -a | grep kern.version
kern.version: FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE #0: Sat Apr  5 15:40:01 EST 2003
#
# mv /usr/share/man/cat8 /usr/share/man/cat8-
#
# logout
$
$ /usr/bin/time man ppp > /dev/null
       14.20 real        10.34 user         0.18 sys
$ /usr/bin/time man ppp > /dev/null
       11.53 real        10.22 user         0.15 sys

(yes, i did it twice)

No message, similar to fbsd 5.1-B.

Now I put cat8/ back:

(in other window)
# mv /usr/share/man/cat8- /usr/share/man/cat8
# rm -f /usr/share/man/cat8/ppp.8.gz
(back to 1st window)

$ /usr/bin/time man ppp > /dev/null
Formatting page, please wait...Done.
       12.07 real        10.45 user         0.22 sys
$ /usr/bin/time man ppp > /dev/null
        0.12 real         0.08 user         0.03 sys

(yes, i did it twice again. no message the 2nd time)

User gets a message (1st time) before waiting 12 seconds, unlike in 5.1-B.


> When catpages get
> created, the text is displayed only after the whole manpage was
> formatted (and saved to a .cat file).  When not creating catpages,
> the formatter passes the output directly to your ${PAGER}, so
> while groff(1) is still formatting the manpage, you can already
> view it (head of it).


Here is a table of what I *really* see:

FreeBSD-4.8:
            | no catpage     | catpage
Normal user | fmt msg, waits | no msg, no wait
Super user  | fmt msg, waits | no msg, no wait

FreeBSD-5.1-B:

Normal user | no msg, waits  | no msg, no wait
Super user  | fmt msg, waits | no msg, no wait


The difference is Normal user.

--

 :{ andyf at speednet.com.au

        Andy Farkas
    System Administrator
   Speednet Communications
 http://www.speednet.com.au/