On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 14:48 +0000, Chris G wrote: > On Fri, Nov 02, 2007 at 09:00:41AM -0400, Robert Locke wrote: > > On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 11:02 +0000, Chris G wrote: > > <snip> > > > Adding the (rpm) entries means that the whatis database is no longer a > > > "set of database files containing short descriptions of system > > > commands" because the things it puts in there are *not* system > > > commands. > > > > Never has been. Only the things in "chapter 1" are really "system > > commands". The whatis database was initially a summary of the > > description lines of each of the man pages, but that has included > > commands, files, library functions, etc. Looking at the chapter told > > you what it was. But now there are things on the system that have no > > traditional man page, but might be what you are looking for. So some > > folks hacked in the (rpm) chapter so that we at least no about the > > existence of those facilities when we "search our system" even though > > they do not have a traditional man page.... > > > > I think it's a neat idea.... > > > > OK, maybe, but it would be *much* more useful if one was pointed at > some information about the thing in question, e.g. 'man -k yelp' tells > me:- > > yelp (rpm) - A system documentation reader from the Gnome project > > but doesn't give me a clue as to how to find out anything else. The > whole point of 'man -k' or 'apropos' is surely to point at the place > where you can find out more about they keyword you have entered. It does. It tells me to look in rpm (for example): rpm -ql $(rpm -qf $(which yelp)) Which will probably, as I look through the files that were installed in the package, point me to a directory under /usr/share/doc/<package-version>/.... Or, maybe I try: yelp --help and since this is a GUI tool, that's probably the only thing I'm going to get..... :-) --Rob
