From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Nov 6 20:09:16 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA07339 for questions-outgoing; Thu, 6 Nov 1997 20:09:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (gregl1.lnk.telstra.net [139.130.136.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id UAA07325 for ; Thu, 6 Nov 1997 20:09:08 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id OAA01382; Fri, 7 Nov 1997 14:38:55 +1030 (CST) Message-ID: <19971107143855.42884@lemis.com> Date: Fri, 7 Nov 1997 14:38:55 +1030 From: Greg Lehey To: Chuck Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why is man so slow? References: <199711070338.WAA02551@capecod.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.84e In-Reply-To: <199711070338.WAA02551@capecod.net>; from Chuck on Thu, Nov 06, 1997 at 10:38:02PM -0500 Organisation: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, Nov 06, 1997 at 10:38:02PM -0500, Chuck wrote: > In FreeBSD-2.0.5 and now 2.2.2R, I find the man command to be > ridiculously slow. If I time "zcat /usr/share/man/man1/tar.1.gz" > it takes less than 1 sec. wall clock time. But "man tar" takes a > full 20 seconds before anything appears. > > And /usr/share/man/man1/tar.1.gz is the only file in $MANPATH with > a name matching "tar.*". It's only 4894 bytes long! Could it be that you are missing the directories /usr/share/man/cat[1-9], or they are not writeable? When a new version of the system is installed, the contents of these directories are removed, and the first time you access a man page, it needs to be formatted with nroff. It then *tries* to save the formatted man page in the cat* hierarchy, but if it doesn't succeed, it won't complain, and it will reformat the man page every time. 20 seconds is still *very* slow. Greg