Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic)
Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> writes:
> I the recent thread about returning a Debian installation to its
> original state "popularity-contest" was mentioned.
>
> I wished to compare it to other tools mentioned in that thread.
> Obvious stating point -- read the man page.
> As I never installed its package I went to
> https://manpages.debian.org/buster/popularity-contest/popularity-contest.8.en.html
> .
>
> It did not explicitly answer my question.
> However, under "SEE ALSO" it stated:
>> Additional documentation is in /usr/share/doc/popularity-contest/.
>
> *PROBLEM*
> As package is not installed, that directory does *NOT* exist.
>
> Where to find required documentation on the web?
>
> NOTE BENE
> This post is about man pages as a class.
Asking for a man page to include all of the documentation about a
package isn't reasonable -- there are man pages like that (bash comes to
mind), and it isn't a page, it's a book. A man page tries to be a
succinct summary, so someone can look up details about running a program,
or about a file format, in a hurry.
If you want the full documentation on something you haven't installed,
the man page is the wrong place to look. Googling 'debian
popularity-contest' (instead of looking specifically for the man page)
points me to
https://salsa.debian.org/popularity-contest-team/popularity-contest#:~:text=The%20popularity%2Dcontest%20package%20sets,go%20on%20the%20first%20CD.
which has a wealth of information.
Reply to: