• Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    10·
    20 days ago

    Real talk, can we talk about how frustrating that it is that man pages aren’t included in most distros by default?

    Was annoying AF when I was trying to install non-flatpack stuff on my steamdeck with no database for reference.

    • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      16·
      19 days ago

      man pages aren’t included in most distros by default

      Wait really? I’m a Debian user so at least the standard programs have manpages, but how do you live without manpages?

      • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
        8·
        19 days ago

        I think citation is needed here. I’ve never been an arch user, but I’ve also never had a distro without man.

        I’m lazy and more likely to do an internet search or if I’m just trying to remember the commands, use tldr 😅

        I just tested, Nobara (fedora based), Ubuntu server, and Mint all have man installed.

        • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          3·
          19 days ago

          Strange. Ubuntu Cinnamon (What I use for my server), HoloISO (SteamOS, steamdeck), and my install of mint didn’t include the man pages.

          I wonder if I had a setting that messed things up along the way.

          • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
            3·
            19 days ago

            Just to be clear, was man installed but not man pages? Or man itself was not installed? I have found variations in exactly what man pages are available but man itself was installed on all I tested, and there were man pages available.

            But if you have either no man installed or no man pages on Ubuntu Cinnamon or Mint, that doesn’t seem right. SteamOS is Arch based so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no man by default.

            • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              3·
              19 days ago

              Man itself but not the pages. Invoking the command results in a “No manual page exists”, and on SteamOS installing man pages (and the program) get overwritten with each update.

              • Dave@lemmy.nzEnglish
                2·
                19 days ago

                Ah interesting, I wonder why that is. I definitely have man pages on the ones I checked.

        • black0ut@pawb.socialEnglish
          3·
          19 days ago

          Arch does have man and manpages, afaik. I could have installed it years ago and forgotten about it, but I always use it without issue.

      • Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        6·
        19 days ago

        I add them in post, it’s just a pain in the ass that they’re not included by default. I guess it’s a file size/constant disk writing issue?

    • vzqq@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      13·
      20 days ago

      But a chunky man page can be like 5kb! We can’t have hundreds of the things just lying around on the file system doing nothing!