Subject: Linux-Activists - DOC Channel digest. 93-2-4-15:36
From: "Linux Activists" <[email-masked]>
To: "Linux-Activists" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1993 20:57:16 +0200

Topics:
	 Re: Re: Man Project
	 Re: Section 5 man pages

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From: [email-masked] (Michael Haardt)
Subject: Re: Re: Man Project
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 17:23:55 +0200

> From: Matt Welsh <[email-masked]>

> 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 ([email-masked])

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From: [email-masked] (Michael Haardt)
Subject: Re: Section 5 man pages
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1993 17:39:33 +0200

> From: Steven Bairstow <[email-masked]>

> 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 ([email-masked])

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