6.1-RELEASE-i386 man broken?

Jonathan Horne freebsd at dfwlp.com
Mon Jul 17 18:54:10 UTC 2006


On Monday 17 July 2006 03:49, J wrote:
> On 2006-07-14 (Fri) 06:55:28 [+0000], Matthew Seaman wrote:
> > J wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > > FreeBSD, recently, as my transported Linux bash configs contained
> > > MANPATH=$MANPATH:/custom/manpath. What I never figured out was the
> > > rationale for this. Anyone mind me asking what's wrong with MANPATH or
> > > why manpath.config is exclusively favored? For instance, while I have a
> > > /usr/lib/man.conf on my Linux system and can set the default manpath
> > > there, man happily coexists with any MANPATH. How does one add a custom
> > > manpath without root privileges? Etc. Just curious; thanks.
> >
> > The manpath(1) program is designed to provide standard system-wide
> > operation of the man(1) command.  It covers all of the places the
> > ports system will put manpages and all of the system manpages.  That
> > is generally sufficient for most sites.
> >
> > If you have a customised directory layout and start putting man pages in
> > unusual places, then you've got two choices.  If these oddly located man
> > pages are for general consumption, then add the appropriate info to
> > /etc/manpath.config -- by editing that one file you will make those
> > manpages visible immediately to all users on the system.
> >
> > Otherwise if you have your own private stache of manpages you should
> > set MANPATH in your shell initialization scripts.  However, you should
> > not assume that MANPATH is already set so that you can just append to
> > it. To get the best of both worlds, set your local $MANPATH based on the
> > output of manpath(1).  For Bourne-type shells, something like:
> >
> > 	MANPATH="${MANPATH:-$(manpath)}:/foo/bar/man:/baz/quux/man"
> > 	export MANPATH
> >
> > Or to ignore any previous setting of MANPATH in the environment:
> >
> > 	MANPATH="$( unset MANPATH ; manpath ):/foo/bar/man:/baz/quux/man"
> > 	export MANPATH
> >
> > csh equivalents are left as an exercise for the student.
>
> Thanks for your time and reply. I'm afraid I'm still failing to see the
> special advantage in the 'MANPATH-produces-warning' method, but I
> suppose it's a 'when in Rome'. :)
> _______________________________________________


this one has me totally stumped.  i have read and re-read this thread so many 
times hopeing that i missed some important clue.  i have 2 6.1 systems, one 
STABLE, and one RELENG (actually, i have i have about 6 RELENG systems, and 
just 1 STABLE).  the STABLE is exhibiting the:

[jhorne at athena ~]$ man man
No manual entry for man

...behavior, but ive been thru checking all the configs, and i cant find whats 
different.  i have the same .bashrc file on each one (just 3 alias and 1 
console colors line, thats it.. no paths or other variables are changed).  
all my RELENG boxes will do man pages just fine.  here is a brief comparison 
of the things suggested in this thread, between my STABLE and one of my 
RELENG's:

[jhorne at athena ~]$ cat /etc/manpath.config | egrep -v '^#'
MANDATORY_MANPATH       /usr/share/man
MANDATORY_MANPATH       /usr/share/openssl/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/local/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP     /bin                    /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/bin                /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/X11R6/bin          /usr/X11R6/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl/man
[jhorne at athena ~]$ manpath
/usr/share/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/X11R6/man:/usr/share/openssl/man:/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/man:/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl/man


[jhorne at fbsd61-2 ~]$ cat /etc/manpath.config | egrep -v '^#'
MANDATORY_MANPATH       /usr/share/man
MANDATORY_MANPATH       /usr/share/openssl/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/local/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP     /bin                    /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/bin                /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/local/bin          /usr/local/man
MANPATH_MAP     /usr/X11R6/bin          /usr/X11R6/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/man
OPTIONAL_MANPATH        /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl/man
[jhorne at fbsd61-2 ~]$ manpath
Warning: couldn't stat file /usr/X11R6/man!
/usr/share/man:/usr/local/man:/usr/share/openssl/man:/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/man:/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/perl/man

the RELENG appears to not be happy about the mans for x11, but other than 
that, all the manuals work on all my RELENG boxes, and my STABLE is the only 
one that does not.

i throw my hands in the air... completely stumped.  of course, all my RELENGs 
are servers, and my 1 STABLE box is my workstation (with KDE, and i dont 
exactly recall at what point i noticed that man pages were no longer 
working).  if anyone has any advice to offer me, i would greatly appreciate 
it.

thanks,
jonathan


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