Re: compressed doc files and apache

[Douglas Bates <bates@stat.wisc.edu>]

>>>>> "Torsten" == Torsten Landschoff <t.landschoff@gmx.net> writes:

  Torsten> On Tue, Dec 01, 1998 at 01:50:29PM -0600, Douglas Bates
  Torsten> wrote:
  >> [tetex-doc over httpd]
  >> 
  >> That works fine except that many internal links are broken.  The
  >> link to doc/texmf/etex/base/etex_man.dvi, for example, doesn't
  >> come up with the dvi file because the file has been compressed
  >> with gzip and is stored as /usr/doc/texmf/etex/base/etex_man.dvi.gz

  Torsten> This should not be! Please file a bug against
  Torsten> tetex-doc. Symlinks have to be changed apropriately. If you
  Torsten> do not have the time mail me, I will try to get a list of
  Torsten> broken links...

Are you sure this would be considered a bug?  I think Debian policy
states that .ps and .dvi files in the /usr/doc tree should be
compressed.  I think the best solution is to have the http server
recognize that a link to .../foo.ps can be satisfied by .../foo.ps.gz
if it is uncompressed before transmission.  I'll admit this doesn't
help people who start at a URL of file:/usr/doc/texmf/ but I don't see
a way of solving that problem without storing uncompressed files or
determining exotic configurations for every browser you plan to use.

If this is to be solved by changing links in all the files in
tetex-doc, it would be a substantial burden on the maintainer of that
package.  Making one change in the configuration of the http server
seems to be a simpler solution.