GitLab

Problem

Man pages are currently included in -doc subpackages. The problem is that -doc is too general and some packages bloat it with huge HTML docs (including images, CSS, JS files…). It’s also used for configuration examples, licenses and basically any stuff that remotely resembles something like a documentation or examples.

A few examples of such packages:

• bullet-doc – 311 MiB
• db-doc – 93.34 MiB
• libdap-doc – 27 MiB
• pipewire-doc – 24 MiB

There’s a metapackage docs that automatically install a corresponding -doc package for every installed package. I’d like to install only man pages for each installed package, not any HTML pages and other bloat. This is currently not possible.

Proposal

I propose to introduce a standard subpackage -man that will be intended for man pages only.

1. Add predefined split function man to /usr/bin/abuild. Move logic for man pages from default_doc to default_man. Update postcheck.

   depends=""
   pkgdesc="$pkgdesc (man pages)"
   install_if="mans $pkgname=$pkgver-r$pkgrel"

2. Create meta package mans (analogous to docs).
3. Mass-update all aports with man pages in -doc – add $pkgname-man to their subpackages.

Alternative solutions

1. We can ban huge HTML pages and PDFs in -doc packages. The problem is that it’s kinda fuzzy.

Questions

1. Should -doc depend on -man?