Re: man -k doesn't work

["Brian J. Stults" <bs7452@csc.albany.edu>]

David Teague wrote:
> 
> You may have fixed the problem, and not recognize it.
> 
> If you are getting 'nothing appropriate' that may be the correct
> answer. For example, on my system,
> 
> elentari:~[1]man -k ls
> ls (1)               - list contents of directories
> mkls-lR (8)          - Make ls-lR files on FTP server for mirror use
> mktexlsr (1)         - create ls-R databases
> texhash (1)          - create ls-R databases
> elentari:~[1]man -k xxx
> xxx: nothing appropriate.
> elentari:~[1]
> 
> Try that and compare results.

Funny you should suggest using "ls" because that's what first comes to
my fingers when I want to test it.  Indeed, "man -k ls" results in,

ls: nothing appropriate.

It turns out mandb is failing.  When I run mandb as root I get this:

Processing manual pages under /usr/man...
Updating index cache for path `/usr/man'. Wait...mandb: can't create a
temporary filename: Permission denied

I don't know enough about how mandb works (even after reading the
manpage and documentation) to know why this is happening.  Any ideas?
-- 

Brian J. Stults
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Sociology
University at Albany - SUNY
Phone: (518) 442-4652  Fax: (518) 442-4936
Web: www.albany.edu/~bs7452