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

[Ruslan Ermilov]

On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 10:52:30PM +1000, Andy Farkas wrote:
> On Mon, 19 May 2003, Ruslan Ermilov wrote:
> > On Mon, May 19, 2003 at 10:21:58PM +1000, Andy Farkas wrote:
> > >
> > > Please realise what I've been trying to tell you: there is a difference in
> > > the user experience when one types `man ppp` on a 4.8 box and when one
> > > types `man ppp` on a 5.1-B box.  On a 4.8 box the user types `man ppp`,
> > > gets a message, then waits around 10 seconds for the page to display. On a
> > > 5.1-B box the user types `man ppp` and DOES NOT GET A MESSAGE BUT HAS TO
> > > WAIT 10 SECONDS before the page is displayed.
> > >
> > You got an explanation.
> 
> I still can't understand why you don't understand me, but I will shut up
> now. I guess being a user on a slow box doesn't matter anymore.
> 
I DO understand what you're trying to tell me, I'm just trying to
stand you corrected.  ;)

Facts:

1.  When catpage is not created, the message is not displayed,
    purposedly, either on 4.x or 5.x, under root or non-root,
    doesn't matter.  The message is only displayed the first
    time the catpage is created.

2.  A catpage is always created for a root user.

3.  A catpage (for a system manpage) is only created for a
    non-root user if man(1) is setuid "man".

The facts are true for both 4.x and 5.x.  If you remove
the -DSETREUID bit from src/gnu/usr.bin/man/man/Makefile
in 4.x, you won't get the message there too.

So, to brought the message back in 5.x, we'd have to re-
enable the setuid code in man(1), which we're not ready
to yet.  Got it?

--
If catpages aren't created, my timings are as follows on
a 500MHz Celeron box:

$ /usr/bin/time -h man ppp >/dev/null
        4,20s real              4,07s user              0,09s sys

But if I just type "man ppp", I'm presented with the first
page of output in about 1 second, so I roughly "don't have
to wait when the whole manpage gets formatted".  How much
seconds does it take for some text to appear on a terminal
attached to your slow box in this case?


Cheers,
-- 
Ruslan Ermilov		Sysadmin and DBA,
ru at sunbay.com		Sunbay Software AG,
ru at FreeBSD.org		FreeBSD committer,
+380.652.512.251	Simferopol, Ukraine

http://www.FreeBSD.org	The Power To Serve
http://www.oracle.com	Enabling The Information Age
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