Void Linux discussion
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* More, manpages
@ 2015-09-16 18:29 Donald Allen
  2015-09-16 18:38 ` Duncaen
  2015-09-17  7:01 ` Pierre Bourgin
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Donald Allen @ 2015-09-16 18:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 176 bytes --]

When displaying manpages with man, more is used. Typing '?' at more claims 
that 'b' or 'ctrl-b' will scroll backwards. It does not work. The 'v' 
command doesn't work either.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 234 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-16 18:29 More, manpages Donald Allen
@ 2015-09-16 18:38 ` Duncaen
  2015-09-16 20:58   ` Donald Allen
  2015-09-17  7:01 ` Pierre Bourgin
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Duncaen @ 2015-09-16 18:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 515 bytes --]

About 'v', do you have setup $EDITOR or $VISUAL in your shell environment.
On the problem with 'b' or '^b', the man page of more says it only works 
with files and not with pipes, is this the problem?
For me it works as expected with st as terminal emulator.

Am Mittwoch, 16. September 2015 20:29:25 UTC+2 schrieb Donald Allen:
>
> When displaying manpages with man, more is used. Typing '?' at more claims 
> that 'b' or 'ctrl-b' will scroll backwards. It does not work. The 'v' 
> command doesn't work either.
>

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 748 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-16 18:38 ` Duncaen
@ 2015-09-16 20:58   ` Donald Allen
  2015-09-17  8:02     ` Duncaen
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Donald Allen @ 2015-09-16 20:58 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1402 bytes --]



On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 2:38:47 PM UTC-4, Duncaen wrote:
>
> About 'v', do you have setup $EDITOR or $VISUAL in your shell environment.
> On the problem with 'b' or '^b', the man page of more says it only works 
> with files and not with pipes, is this the problem?
>

Sounds very plausible. I'm used to the man on Arch, which presents the man 
pages in a vim-like environment (maybe it is vim?). The simple vi commands 
work, and 'gg' gets you to the top, as in vim. The use of more, 
particularly if you can't scroll back, is big step backwards (pun intended).
 

> For me it works as expected with st as terminal emulator.
>

That would not seem to be consistent with your pipe theory above. Why 
should the terminal emulator matter if more won't scroll back when its 
input is a pipe? Nonetheless, I tried installing st and its behavior is 
bizarre. Every character displayed has a lot of whitespace after it, 
including what you type. I could not get man to work and gave up. I am 
running a newly installed Void on a PC with an AMD processor, ATI video 
hardware and no desktop system, just a window manager (dwm). 

>
> Am Mittwoch, 16. September 2015 20:29:25 UTC+2 schrieb Donald Allen:
>>
>> When displaying manpages with man, more is used. Typing '?' at more 
>> claims that 'b' or 'ctrl-b' will scroll backwards. It does not work. The 
>> 'v' command doesn't work either.
>>
>

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 2105 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-16 18:29 More, manpages Donald Allen
  2015-09-16 18:38 ` Duncaen
@ 2015-09-17  7:01 ` Pierre Bourgin
  2015-09-17 11:14   ` Donald Allen
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Pierre Bourgin @ 2015-09-17  7:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 133 bytes --]

I use "less" to display man pages: b, gg, ^d, ^u work as expected (but not 
^b ?)

echo export PAGER='less -i' >> ~/.bashrc 

Pierre

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 249 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-16 20:58   ` Donald Allen
@ 2015-09-17  8:02     ` Duncaen
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Duncaen @ 2015-09-17  8:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1782 bytes --]

Your right the terminal has nothing to do with it, i use less as $PAGER too.

PAGER=more man man
>
Breaks the scrollback, if it try "more somelargefile" it works.

More is part of the util-linux package and therefore it is the only pager 
installed by default.

Am Mittwoch, 16. September 2015 22:58:56 UTC+2 schrieb Donald Allen:
>
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 16, 2015 at 2:38:47 PM UTC-4, Duncaen wrote:
>>
>> About 'v', do you have setup $EDITOR or $VISUAL in your shell environment.
>> On the problem with 'b' or '^b', the man page of more says it only works 
>> with files and not with pipes, is this the problem?
>>
>
> Sounds very plausible. I'm used to the man on Arch, which presents the man 
> pages in a vim-like environment (maybe it is vim?). The simple vi commands 
> work, and 'gg' gets you to the top, as in vim. The use of more, 
> particularly if you can't scroll back, is big step backwards (pun intended).
>  
>
>> For me it works as expected with st as terminal emulator.
>>
>
> That would not seem to be consistent with your pipe theory above. Why 
> should the terminal emulator matter if more won't scroll back when its 
> input is a pipe? Nonetheless, I tried installing st and its behavior is 
> bizarre. Every character displayed has a lot of whitespace after it, 
> including what you type. I could not get man to work and gave up. I am 
> running a newly installed Void on a PC with an AMD processor, ATI video 
> hardware and no desktop system, just a window manager (dwm). 
>
>>
>> Am Mittwoch, 16. September 2015 20:29:25 UTC+2 schrieb Donald Allen:
>>>
>>> When displaying manpages with man, more is used. Typing '?' at more 
>>> claims that 'b' or 'ctrl-b' will scroll backwards. It does not work. The 
>>> 'v' command doesn't work either.
>>>
>>

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 2751 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-17  7:01 ` Pierre Bourgin
@ 2015-09-17 11:14   ` Donald Allen
  2015-09-17 14:15     ` Juan RP
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Donald Allen @ 2015-09-17 11:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 297 bytes --]



On Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 3:01:46 AM UTC-4, Pierre Bourgin wrote:
>
> I use "less" to display man pages: b, gg, ^d, ^u work as expected (but not 
> ^b ?)
>
> echo export PAGER='less -i' >> ~/.bashrc 
>
> Pierre
>

Good suggestion. That solves this problem. It ought to be the default. 

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 569 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-17 11:14   ` Donald Allen
@ 2015-09-17 14:15     ` Juan RP
  2015-09-17 14:32       ` Christian Neukirchen
  2015-09-17 22:09       ` Donald Allen
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Juan RP @ 2015-09-17 14:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 146 bytes --]

The default pager is more(1), as you've found out, less(1) is more.

So that if you need a decent pager set PAGER=less in your shell environment.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 180 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-17 14:15     ` Juan RP
@ 2015-09-17 14:32       ` Christian Neukirchen
  2015-09-17 22:09       ` Donald Allen
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Christian Neukirchen @ 2015-09-17 14:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Juan RP; +Cc: voidlinux

Juan RP <xtr...@gmail.com> writes:

> The default pager is more(1), as you've found out, less(1) is more.
>
> So that if you need a decent pager set PAGER=less in your shell environment.

OTOH, mandb defaulted to "less", so we could just as well patch
manpage.c (no idea why OpenBSD doesn't do that, they ship less as well
in the base system.)

-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneuk...@gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-17 14:15     ` Juan RP
  2015-09-17 14:32       ` Christian Neukirchen
@ 2015-09-17 22:09       ` Donald Allen
  2015-09-18  8:12         ` Seth Hover
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Donald Allen @ 2015-09-17 22:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 796 bytes --]



On Thursday, September 17, 2015 at 10:15:15 AM UTC-4, Juan RP wrote:
>
> The default pager is more(1), as you've found out, less(1) is more.
>
> So that if you need a decent pager set PAGER=less in your shell 
> environment.
>

I've done that. But my point is that the distribution shouldn't include an 
indecent pager by default, especially for something as fundamental as man. 
I installed from void-live-x86_64-20150713.iso 
<http://repo.voidlinux.eu/live/current/void-live-x86_64-20150713.iso> and 
less was installed. I assume, but don't know, that it is installed by 
default by the other live images. But if it isn't, it should be. Not being 
able to move around freely in man pages is a real problem, and I think many 
will not know how to change the pager. And they shouldn't have to.

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 1024 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-17 22:09       ` Donald Allen
@ 2015-09-18  8:12         ` Seth Hover
  2015-09-18 13:28           ` Donald Allen
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Seth Hover @ 2015-09-18  8:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 861 bytes --]

On Friday, September 18, 2015 at 12:09:24 AM UTC+2, Donald Allen wrote:
>
>
> I've done that. But my point is that the distribution shouldn't include an 
> indecent pager by default, especially for something as fundamental as man. 
> I installed from void-live-x86_64-20150713.iso 
> <http://repo.voidlinux.eu/live/current/void-live-x86_64-20150713.iso> and 
> less was installed. I assume, but don't know, that it is installed by 
> default by the other live images. But if it isn't, it should be. Not being 
> able to move around freely in man pages is a real problem, and I think many 
> will not know how to change the pager. And they shouldn't have to.
>

i think that argument could be made for some distributions. 

for a distro like void, a user could be reasonably expected to know how to 
change their $PAGER or at least learn how to do this.

--seth

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 1531 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

* Re: More, manpages
  2015-09-18  8:12         ` Seth Hover
@ 2015-09-18 13:28           ` Donald Allen
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Donald Allen @ 2015-09-18 13:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: voidlinux


[-- Attachment #1.1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1615 bytes --]



On Friday, September 18, 2015 at 4:12:58 AM UTC-4, Seth Hover wrote:
>
> On Friday, September 18, 2015 at 12:09:24 AM UTC+2, Donald Allen wrote:
>>
>>
>> I've done that. But my point is that the distribution shouldn't include 
>> an indecent pager by default, especially for something as fundamental as 
>> man. I installed from void-live-x86_64-20150713.iso 
>> <http://repo.voidlinux.eu/live/current/void-live-x86_64-20150713.iso> and 
>> less was installed. I assume, but don't know, that it is installed by 
>> default by the other live images. But if it isn't, it should be. Not being 
>> able to move around freely in man pages is a real problem, and I think many 
>> will not know how to change the pager. And they shouldn't have to.
>>
>
> i think that argument could be made for some distributions. 
>
> for a distro like void, a user could be reasonably expected to know how to 
> change their $PAGER or at least learn how to do this.
>

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. One of the jobs of a 
distribution-maker is to choose sensible defaults. That's true of even the 
most stick-shift, anti-Ubuntu distributions, like Arch, Slackware and Void. 
The virtue of these distributions is that they don't load you up with bloat 
from the moment they are installed. They give you the opportunity to start 
small and build as much of a computing environment as you need and no more. 
But for what they do provide, it makes no sense to choose bad defaults, as 
'more' is in the 'man' case (in my opinion), on the grounds that "anyone 
using this distribution should know how to change this". 

>
> --seth
>

[-- Attachment #1.2: Type: text/html, Size: 2570 bytes --]

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2015-09-18 13:28 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2015-09-16 18:29 More, manpages Donald Allen
2015-09-16 18:38 ` Duncaen
2015-09-16 20:58   ` Donald Allen
2015-09-17  8:02     ` Duncaen
2015-09-17  7:01 ` Pierre Bourgin
2015-09-17 11:14   ` Donald Allen
2015-09-17 14:15     ` Juan RP
2015-09-17 14:32       ` Christian Neukirchen
2015-09-17 22:09       ` Donald Allen
2015-09-18  8:12         ` Seth Hover
2015-09-18 13:28           ` Donald Allen

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).