[LUNI] MANPATH curiosity

[David Horton]

Richard Baxter wrote:
> Dear luni's,
> 
> I am running Mandrake 9.x, and for some reason the MANPATH utility for all
> accounts, including root, only contains /usr/man, while the actual man
> pages are in /usr/share/man
> 
> I have figured out I can fix this by adding a few lines in my
> .bash_profile account, but it strikes me there should be a system file I
> can edit for this.
> 
> In particular, I have found the file man.config in my /etc directory which
> contains the following:
> 
> # Every automatically generated MANPATH includes these fields
> #
> MANPATH /usr/share/man
> MANPATH /usr/X11R6/man
> MANPATH /usr/local/man
> MANPATH /usr/kerberos/man
> MANPATH /usr/man
> 
> So why is my actual MANPATH variable only containing /usr/man?
> 
> any advice greatly appreciated,
> 
> Richard Baxter

Richard,

Look in the file /etc/profile.  I have Slackware, not Mandrake, but this 
is where my MANPATH variable is set.  Changing it here will change it 
for all users.

You may also want to set up /usr/man as a symbolic link to 
/usr/share/man if it's not there already.  /usr/share/man is the 
preferred location for man pages according to the Filesystem Hierarchy 
Standard (see http://www.pathname.com/fhs for more info) whereas 
/usr/man is the more traditional location.  Using the symlink takes care 
of both the FHS and the traditional.  The old and the new become as one, 
Grasshopper.  :^)

Dave