Date: Wed, 26 Apr 1995 22:20:32 +0800 (CST) From: Brian Tao <taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw> To: "Eloy A. Paris" <eaparis@tinman.mke.ab.com> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Just three questions Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.91.950426220800.1196I-100000@aries.ibms.sinica.edu.tw> In-Reply-To: <199504260058.TAA11714@tinman.mke.ab.com>
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On Tue, 25 Apr 1995, Eloy A. Paris wrote:
>
> 2) Why when I type the command "man <command>" it takes so long to display
> the corresponding manual page?. In Linux and other UNIX systems as well,
> that is very fast.
The default manpage distribution for FreeBSD does not create the
/usr/share/man/cat[1-8] directories where preformatted man pages are
stored. Once you create them, you will see this the first time you
bring up a man page:
% man ls
Formatting page, please wait...
[man page here]
The formatted version is then stored in the appropriate "cat"
directory. When you call up that man page again, the formatted
version is displayed instead. Even a huge man page (like tcsh(1),
over 200K) comes up instantly. The trade-off here is speed vs. space.
Peeking over at my friend's Linux box, his preformatted man pages take
up an additional 5 megabytes (that doesn't include local software or
X11 stuff). The "catman" command will hunt around for all your man
pages and generated preformatted ones for you (instead of waiting for
you to call each one up as you need them).
--
Brian ("Though this be madness, yet there is method in't") Tao
taob@gate.sinica.edu.tw <-- work ........ play --> taob@io.org
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