Subject: Don't run the makewhatis command from SLS
From: [email-masked] (Thomas Koenig)
Date: 8 Apr 1993 14:31:04 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce

[I can't verify this, but I'll trust Thomas. --mdw]

A word of warning to all who have installed the SLS distribution:

Do NOT run /usr/lib/makewhatis as distributed on SLS.  It will
clobber your whatis database, making the man -k command unusable.

The reason for this is simple:  Most man pages that come with SLS come
in the /usr/man/cat?  directories, which means that they have already
been preformatted.  The version of makewhatis distributed with SLS does
not recognize these; you need the man - pages in normal format in the
/usr/man/man? - dirs.

If you install new manpages, rename your whatis database to something
else, run makewhatis, then concatenate the two and save them back
into whatis (you may also run them through sort -u to make sure you
don't get duplicates).

Happy hacking
-- 
Thomas Koenig, [email-masked], [email-masked]
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

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