Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce
From: eep2gw@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Wilf.)
Subject: New Fast FSSTND compliant Manual pager on sunsite
Message-ID: <ann-8651.769136161@cs.cornell.edu>
Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 00:56:19 GMT
Approved: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu (Matt Welsh)

MAN v2.0.2 
----------

A new version of man is available. It is based on and contains code from
man-1.1B, a patched version of man-1.0 which I notice Slackware uses. 
I have changed a lot internally, but externally all you (as a user) will 
notice is a dramatic increase in location speed.

This man, version 2.0.2 alpha uses a database to look up the location of your 
desired page. Once installed, the database is self-updating. No need to 
have to periodically run some special program to update the database. You 
install a new manual page and it is instantly available. As with the version 
it is based on, users may have their own man trees, which will have their 
own databases.

This version is also optionally Linux Filesystem standard compliant 
(FSSTND), ie stores cat pages in a /var/catman tree instead of on the /usr 
partition. This aids the possible mounting of /usr readonly.

This version can also be used with straycats (cat pages with no nroff 
source). A program is supplied to aid with this.
 
The reason I called this software release alpha is due to the nature of the 
additional programs that I wrote for this package. I would state that 
man(1), manpath(1) are very stable, mandb(1) is probably beta, but 
straycats(8) has not had much testing and can be dangerous if missused (by 
the superuser).

At the moment it is in the Incoming directory at sunsite.

Please enjoy. Here is the lsm entry:

Begin2
Title        = man - db based manual pager
Version      = 2.0.2 alpha
Desc1        = This version of man is based on man-1.1B, but has had much 
Desc2        = of the code replaced, and a lot added. It can be FSSTND
Desc3        = compliant and now uses a self updating database to store the
Desc4        = location of your man pages. This version is MUCH quicker than
Desc5        = the older version.
Author       = New stuff by Graeme Wilford (Wilf.)
AuthorEmail  = eep2gw@ee.surrey.ac.uk
Maintainer   = Wilf.
MaintEmail   = eep2gw@ee.surrey.ac.uk
Site1        = sunsite.unc.edu
Path1        = /pub/Linux/system/Manual-pagers
File1        = man-2.0a2.tgz
FileSize1    = ~65k
Required1    = Possibly >= make-v3.70, gdbm or ndbm (included in libc-4.x.x)
CopyPolicy1  = Freely distributable, but Copyrighted.
Keywords     = man mandb manpath apropos whatis staycats manual pager
RelFiles1    = mandb manpath apropos whatis makewhatis straycats
Entered      = 12MAY94
EnteredBy    = eep2gw@ee.surrey.ac.uk
CheckedEmail = eep2gw@ee.surrey.ac.uk
end

Cheers,
Wilf.

--
Mail submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce@tc.cornell.edu
Be sure to include Keywords: and a short description of your software.
