Re: man_MANS install locations

[Jan Engelhardt]

On Wednesday 2022-08-31 23:20, Karl Berry wrote:
>
>Should the rpmlint check be adjusted to cater to the GNU FHS?
>
>[..]
>Also, GNU (as an organization) never had anything to do with the FHS,

I just called it GNU FHS to distinguish it from the LF/LSB FHS. Autotools
for example defaults to

libexecdir = ${prefix}/libexec
sharedstatedir = ${prefix}/com

and the LSB FHS (or its interpretations in distros) used or do use

libexecdir = /usr/lib  (old FHS 2.3)
sharedstatedir = /var/lib

So there must have been some plan within GNU project(s) when directory
locations were chosen, manpage dirs included :^)

Re: man_MANS install locations

[Russ Allbery]

Jacob Bachmeyer  writes:

> This would be adapting to platform-specific requirements.  I suspect
> that Solaris man(1) will not look for svcadm.1m in man1 at all but only
> in man1m.

I would recommend testing that if you haven't, since I would have assumed
the opposite.  I'm fairly sure that, back when I was actively maintaining
and installing software on Solaris, I never bothered with separate
directories for the lettered subsections, and it never caused problems.

-- 
Russ Allbery (ea...@eyrie.org) 

Re: man_MANS install locations

[Jacob Bachmeyer]

Karl Berry wrote:

Hi Jan,

As for GNU/Linux, what was the rationale to only permit [0-9ln]?

No idea. Maybe just didn't think about "m", or maybe it didn't exist at
that time? Jim, Paul, anyone?

Should automake be relaxed? 


I see no harm in allowing more (any) letters, if that's what you mean.

When running automake on Solaris, placing svcadm.1m into man1 rather
than man1m seems outright wrong.

But is Automake's purpose to reproduce platform-specific behavior, or to
have consistent behavior across platforms?  I think the latter.
  


This would be adapting to platform-specific requirements.  I suspect 
that Solaris man(1) will not look for svcadm.1m in man1 at all but only 
in man1m.



I guess a new option to install *.1m in man1m/, etc., would be ok, if
you want it. If you or anyone can provide a patch, that would be
great. Unfortunately I doubt it's anything I will ever implement myself.
  


Maybe the best answer is to install into an existing directory if one is 
found and otherwise trim the suffix to the "standard" set?



Should the rpmlint check be adjusted to cater to the GNU FHS?

I guess that's a question for the rpmlint people, whoever they are.
I don't see that Automake's default behavior is going to change.

Also, GNU (as an organization) never had anything to do with the FHS,
so far as I know. I don't think the GNU coding standards/maintainer
information have anything to say about this topic ...
  


I seem to remember reading somewhere that /usr is supposed to be a 
symlink to / on the GNU system, so no, GNU is not intended to follow FHS.



-- Jacob

Re: man_MANS install locations

[Karl Berry]

Hi Jan,

As for GNU/Linux, what was the rationale to only permit [0-9ln]?

No idea. Maybe just didn't think about "m", or maybe it didn't exist at
that time? Jim, Paul, anyone?

Should automake be relaxed? 

I see no harm in allowing more (any) letters, if that's what you mean.

When running automake on Solaris, placing svcadm.1m into man1 rather
than man1m seems outright wrong.

But is Automake's purpose to reproduce platform-specific behavior, or to
have consistent behavior across platforms?  I think the latter.

I guess a new option to install *.1m in man1m/, etc., would be ok, if
you want it. If you or anyone can provide a patch, that would be
great. Unfortunately I doubt it's anything I will ever implement myself.

Should the rpmlint check be adjusted to cater to the GNU FHS?

I guess that's a question for the rpmlint people, whoever they are.
I don't see that Automake's default behavior is going to change.

Also, GNU (as an organization) never had anything to do with the FHS,
so far as I know. I don't think the GNU coding standards/maintainer
information have anything to say about this topic ... --thanks, karl.