Re: man problem

[cjw44@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

thomas <list@huno.net> wrote:
>i have switched to debian a week ago and was using SuSE for over a
>year now. debian is clearly superior (if you know what you're doing).
>and i already love apt-get.
>
>but i have a small problem: man doesnt let me use PageUp and PageDown to
>scroll the man-page. i can use space to scroll one page down, but i cant
>scroll up. is there a way to teach man PageUp and PageDown? it's not a
>big problem but i was already used to that and i catched myself like 5
>times pressinf PageDown out of frustration although i knew it doesnt
>work.

Hi,

man just fires off a pager, so you'll need to check that. If you have
$PAGER set, it will use that, otherwise it'll use /usr/bin/pager (try
'readlink -f /usr/bin/pager' to see what that is). My guess is that you
don't have $PAGER set and haven't installed 'less', so you're getting
the basic pager 'more'. 'more' can't scroll backwards in pipes, hence
the problem.

'apt-get install less' to get a better pager, and your problems should
go away. If that doesn't work, 'update-alternatives --config pager' to
change what /usr/bin/pager points to.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                     [cjw44@flatline.org.uk]