Return-Path: owner-linux-activists@Niksula.hut.fi Return-Path: Received: from joker.cs.hut.fi by hydra.Helsinki.FI (4.1/SMI-4.1/36) id AA14282; Thu, 4 Mar 93 20:58:28 +0200 Received: from joker.cs.hut.fi by niksula.hut.fi id <62244-1>; Thu, 4 Mar 1993 20:57:26 +0200 From: "Linux Activists" To: "Linux-Activists" Reply-To: "Linux-Activists" X-Note1: Remember to put 'X-Mn-Key: DOC' to your mail body or header Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-2-4-15:36 X-Mn-Key: DOC Sender: owner-linux-activists@Niksula.hut.fi Message-Id: <93Mar4.205726eet.62244-1@niksula.hut.fi> Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 20:57:16 +0200 Status: RO X-Status: Topics: Re: Re: Man Project Re: Section 5 man pages ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: michael@gandalf.moria (Michael Haardt) Subject: Re: Re: Man Project Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 17:23:55 +0200 > From: Matt Welsh > There have been some questions regarding use of groff for the man page project. > As I see it, we should conform to using groff and the man macro package > used by same for our man pages. Some online documentation, such as for emacs > and other extended topics, might be appropriate for texinfo but at present > I think groff is the way to go for man pages. Sorry if I didn't made it clear enough. The GNU folks will (as it seems) not use roff but texinfo for documenting the GNU C library. I think that already decides about future. For now groff will be used, of course. Further, a roff -> texinfo filter is needed to convert current linux and other manual pages. For now means, I have no idea yet when the big change (tm) will happen. However it means, that cryptic roff code and non-standard macros should be avoided. That filter will not disappear after, it will stay useful for years and years I think. Btw: most manual pages *are* clean, so I don't expect too much problems in this area. > I plan to get in touch with Lar Kaufman, who is heading the Committee for > Common Man and works with SGML issues. I'd like to find out what his goals > are and possibly conform to them in the man project for Linux. Texinfo should be much easier to convert to SGML than roff. > Yes, there have been many flame wars over groff/texinfo for online > documentation. At this point I think that standard man pages written in > groff are the best bet. Agreed. Personally, I still like roff very much and I would hate to see it disappear, but then again ... I am not going to document the C library, so obviously I can't say much. > All you need is nroff or groff > on your system, and the various font files and macro files. If you have > the groff binaries you should have the other files you need. Groff almost compiles out of the box (change BLOCK_SIZE to XBLOCK_SIZE in a few files). Installation works fine too. :) Michael (u31b3hs@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) ------------------------------ From: michael@gandalf.moria (Michael Haardt) Subject: Re: Section 5 man pages Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 17:39:33 +0200 > From: Steven Bairstow > I'll be glad to start work on section 5 man pages if someone would send me > the agreed upon template for Linux man pages. I'll also offer my machine as > a home for anyone else who wants to work on them. I have the following Linux manual pages in chapter 5: environ.5 intro.5 nologin.5 securetty.5 utmp.5 group.5 motd.5 passwd.5 ttytype.5 wtmp.5 The following pages came with packages, so please don't include them: aliases.5 groff_font.5 magic.5 rcsfile.5 crontab.5 groff_out.5 nfs.5 syslog.conf.5 fstab.5 inittab.5 procmailex.5 termcap.5 gettydefs.5 issue.5 procmailrc.5 uuencode.5 A suggestion: I keep Linux system pages in sman compared to man for usual pages to keep them seperated from packages. I can upload the system pages or send them to with email, together with the template. Any comments? Michael (u31b3hs@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de) ------------------------------ End of DOC Digest ***************** ------- .