MANPATH screwed up on (my) VL5.8 Standard?

[exeterdad]

I've been noticing that many times when trying to view a manpage there doesn' seem to be a listing for that app.
I just built a package and was testing it today.  The manpage for the app was in /usr/share/man.  I went to see if it was indeed there and it was, along with many, many others.  I did a

echo $MANPATH

and /usr/share/man wasn't included.  I updated the path in a console like this

export MANPATH=$MANPATH:/usr/share/man

and it worked.

man xscreensaver

works now, but didn't in the past.  Where in the system is this path set/appended?  I'd like to fix it so I don't have to reset it each time I open up a console?

[M0E-lnx]

I think the manpath in vl defaults to /usr/man not /usr/share/man

[exeterdad]

That may be so, but /usr/share/man needs to be there as well.  Take a peek there.  There are TONS of man pages there that are part of the default install.

[easuter]

Actually, I think /usr/share/man is simply a symlink to /usr/man
To check if this is so:

Code:

ls -l /usr/share/man

[exeterdad]

Code:

leeh:$ ls -l /usr/share/man
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  784 2007-07-05 13:23 man1/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  888 2006-11-27 23:50 man3/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  400 2006-11-27 23:50 man5/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 6768 2007-07-19 13:00 man6/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  112 2006-11-27 23:50 man7/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  504 2006-11-27 23:50 man8/

[easuter]

My bad: I was thinking of /usr/share/info 

The paths set for all users are in ~/.bashrc and /etc/profile.d (this is where you can put these exports in a script and they will be run for all users).

BTW, when compiling from source, there is also normally an option to use the --mandir=/usr/man flag to make sure the man pages get installed to /usr/man (which is the Slackware way)

[exeterdad]

/usr/man (which is the Slackware way)

Noted!  I will adjust the package before uploading.

Although I am curious how the manpages got into /usr/share/man on a clean install? 

Thanks for the tip on where $MANPATH is set.

[easuter]

By default, configure scripts set the manpages to be installed either to /usr/share/man or /usr/local/man, so unless you specifically use the --mandir flag, the manpages will normally always end up in the wrong place.

[exeterdad]

I think you may of misunderstood.  There are lots of manpages already in /usr/share/man that were put there by the install cd.  A few hundred of them.

[easuter]

Yes, I understood, that simply means those packages were not compiled with the --mandir flag....and they should have been 

[Triarius Fidelis]

/usr/share/doc, /usr/share/man, and /usr/share/info should be links IMO. Makes messing up impossible.

[exeterdad]

/usr/share/doc, /usr/share/man, and /usr/share/info should be links IMO. Makes messing up impossible.

I agree with that.