Re: architecture-specific man pages (was Re: Policy does not speak of translated man pages)
On Tue, 27 Mar 2001, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2001 at 05:15:53 +0200, Manfred Wassmann wrote:
> > On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, Colin Watson wrote:
> > > Note that we don't have architecture-specific man page hierarchies as
> > > mentioned in that section of the FHS. Incidentally, I think putting
> > > those in /usr/share/man/i386 etc. is a misfeature - why not use
> > > /usr/lib/man for programs only available on the current architecture,
> > > like everything else architecture-specific? Or is the intention that you
> > > can install man pages for i386-only programs on an Alpha?
> >
> > What if that Alpha is a fileserver exporting /usr/share(/man) to a PC?
> > If you have a program with different manpages for both architectures you
> > would certainly want them both in /usr/share/man, wouldn't you?
>
> Would I? I'd have thought I'd only want the one for the architecture I
> was actually using in that case, and have it installed locally. (Such
> man pages should be rather rare, of course.)
Rare or not, /usr/share is a place for architecture independant data that
may be shared between hosts of different architectures and the example
shows that it is quite useful to have a place for architecture
specific architecture independant data in there. And you _can_ read an
i386 manpage on an Alpha, so it's not architecture dependant.
Nobody forces you to put something into /usr/share/man/<arch> but I think
it is very reasonable to have it defined when someone needs it.
--
Manfred Wassmann
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+++ I18N ? For international language set LANG=POSIX +++
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