Hi Marc, Marc Espie wrote on Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 05:40:38PM +0100: > On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 04:31:57PM +0100, Ingo Schwarze wrote: >> Thomas de Grivel wrote on Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 03:32:03PM +0100:
>>> From weekly output : >>>> Rebuilding whatis databases: >>>> /usr/libexec/makewhatis: Can't create /usr/share/man/whatis.db: >>>> Read-only file system >>> Should not whatis.db be in /var/... ? >> I think you have a point. Specifically, /var/db/man/. >> Having cron(8) scripts write to /usr is ugly. >> I don't see why mounting /usr readonly should require >> disabling makewhatis(8). > I disagree: manpage directories are self-contained. > > If I add or remove a directory to my man configuration, it shouldn't > require a rebuild of the database for other directories. > Hence having a whatis.db per-man directory root. > > If you want to move those to /var/db/man or something, you'd better be > prepared to have database file names that depend on the root directory > being used. I fully agree with all that, and having per-hierarchy databases in /var/db/man - one for /usr/share/man, one for /usr/X11R6/man, one for /usr/local/man, one for each additional directory the user configures in man.conf(5) - is indeed what i hope to do. Yours, Ingo
