Man pages compressed?

[tinypoodle]

That makes me wonder if it would be possible to squeeze out a bit more by using gzip and additionally invoke advdef (as recommended for initrd's).

[Jason W]

Makes sense that advdef should work, can at least try it out.

Also, info pages can be compressed too and read from info readers, I will add that into the routine.

[Jason W]

Added info files compressing, which can also be read with bzip2.  But these normally larger files show a significant size reduction with bzip2, so still pondering the best overall compression format.  Info files can benefit from bz2, and man pages won't suffer from it.  Performance is not critical when compressing man pages or reading them, so I am leaning back to bz2 though the compression difference is insignificant for the smaller files.  At least for the info pages.

[Jason W]

Moved the script to programming and scripting.

[Jason W]

I am going to compress the man/info pages of extension of mine I upload.  Bzip2 gives a good advantage for the larger info files, and it would probably be good to standardize on one compression method for both man and info files though the advantage is much smaller for man pages.  My preference is to standardize on bzip2, but it is open for discussion.

[bmarkus]

Just submitted updated man.tcz which now supports .gz .bz2 and .xz compressed man pages. xz is provided by base, so xz compression do not need any more dependency or the more advanced xz.tcz extension but gives smaller result. So I propose use of xz.

[gutmensch]

posted, thanks bela! I'll go with xz for man pages too (and already have)... makewhatis and apropos didn't work in man-1.6f, would be worth figuring out if they do now

[bmarkus]

posted, thanks bela! I'll go with xz for man pages too (and already have)... makewhatis and apropos didn't work in man-1.6f, would be worth figuring out if they do now

Well, lets collect some feedback and I will check the other uses. I'm using man pages only not apropos, so to be honest I did not test it

[hiro]

I think man pages were once a very powerful tool. It's definitely the way to document a programming environment with all it's tools and libraries.
But now that modern application's man pages are often longer than a full-blown book, I seldom find meaningful documentation inside them.
Because of this and various "standards", i.e. gzipped man pages, html files and other undocumented formats, I have stopped caring and now use today's equivalent of grep to search through dozens of exabytes of data first, and then get all the information I need, but more up-to-date, shorter and easier to read.
Also, now that nobody knows how to read all the different types of manpages anymore, developers have started to simply include all the documentation inside their executables. They now have options called --usage, --full-usage, --short-help, or --long-help. Try to compress that away...

[tinypoodle]

developers have started to simply include all the documentation inside their executables. They now have options called --usage, --full-usage, --short-help, or --long-help. Try to compress that away...

What about UPX?

[bmarkus]

Also, now that nobody knows how to read all the different types of manpages anymore, developers have started to simply include all the documentation inside their executables. They now have options called --usage, --full-usage, --short-help, or --long-help. Try to compress that away...

IMHO it is not the case. Nothing wrong with manpages regarding formats, they are still readable on 'big' distros I use. What is happening that man pages are loosing importance due to available storage capacity, bandwidth and alternative formats, like pdf or HTML. Novadays it is much more easier and common as well practical to create pdf from any system on any platform, while creation of man pages requires extra work.

However, man pages are still alive and provided by many packages. It is good question wheter they are uptodate or not. Specially usable for the classic LINUX tools.

[hiro]

Look at the busybox manual as an example for what I said.
What you say is true of course as I've also been using a lot of man pages on debian. Most tools still have them, although some are getting too long or outdated. And I don't want a different reader for every program. Even a web search is easier than that.
But creating man pages is not by any means difficult. Why should it be any extra work?

[bmarkus]

But creating man pages is not in any means difficult. Why should it be any extra work?

I'm writing docs in WORD and publishing in pdf. Do you have a 'Man page printer' ?

[hiro]

I don't know what you mean, nroff, troff?