Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2002 12:27:37 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk> To: Peter Leftwich <Hostmaster@Video2Video.Com> Cc: FreeBSD LIST <FreeBSD-Questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Peter vs adjkerntz vs [most manpages] Message-ID: <20020721112737.GB26827@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophi> In-Reply-To: <20020720210405.G30465-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> References: <20020720210405.G30465-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sat, Jul 20, 2002 at 09:13:24PM -0400, Peter Leftwich wrote: > Having already given up on "man ___" for X, XFree86, xdm, Xserver, Xinit > and feeling like I was being churned in circles, I decided to try to solve > the problem of my CMOS clock being set to GMT. That's a problem? It's usually having your CMOS clock *not* set to UTC that's the problem. Well, unless you're running other, less clearly thought out, operating systems on the same hardware. > (By the way ~ When I run `man 7 X` as instructed from a "SEE ALSO," there > is no entry for it! *baffled looks*) That's a bug. It seems that the X man page is in the '__miscmansuffix__' (sic) section for recent XFree86. That should be section 7, which is where miscellaneous pages are meant to live on *BSD (see intro(7)). The reason for all this confusion is that unfortunately other brands of Unix put their man pages in different places. So on Solaris for example, section 7 contains descriptions of various device and network interfaces (http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=intro&apropos=0&sektion=7&manpath=SunOS+5.8&format=html). That means there has to be a configurable setting in the XFree86 compilation system, and extra complexity leads to extra opportunities for things to go wrong. If you just type 'man X' you should get the right page. > Can anyone out there honestly make sense of `man 8 tzsetup` ?! I can. The meat of it is that tzsetup is pretty self explanatory to run. For normal use, you don't need to read beyond the `DESCRIPTION' paragraph. There's a lot of extra complexity in the timezone system because the naming scheme was significantly extended in reach and changed in style while back. Once apon a time you would have set your timezone to `PST8PDT' or just `PST'. You can still do that if you want, but it's easier to use and understand as "America/Los_Angeles" > And what is the point of the manpage listing all these other resources? > > /etc/localtime current time zone file > /etc/wall_cmos_clock see adjkerntz(8). > /usr/share/misc/iso3166 mapping of ISO 3166 territory codes to names > /usr/share/zoneinfo directory for zoneinfo files > /usr/share/zoneinfo/zone.tab mapping of timezone file to country and location Ummm... because that's the way man pages are supposed to work? How else are you going to find out exactly what files are used to control the timezone system? That information might seem superfluous to you for your current problem, but that's OK, because you can just ignore the stuff you don't need. If your TZ stuff was playing up in a different way, then modifying one of those files by hand might be your best recourse to fix the problem, and if it wasn't documented somewhere in a manual page you'ld be left grovelling through the system source code to try and work out what was happening. As a system administrator, can you honestly tell me that you've never felt the urge to fold, spindle or mutilate the people responsible for the sort of documentation that says "Please consult your system administrator"? > Seems to me like manpages have a really bad habit of "hyperlinking" to > several other manpages that hyperlink back to whence you started from! That's a *good* habit. The 'SEE ALSO' section header might be phrased as a command, but it's really only a suggestion. If you've read through the man page that far, and still haven't found the answer you need, then a row of suggestions as to what else to read is a real benefit. Remember that not everyone will start reading at the same page you do, so the 'SEE ALSO' links have to work in both directions. > Now I know how my family's Apple II+ must have felt when we viciously typed > in BASIC for it to "10 GOTO 10." Ever got trapped in the shower by a bottle of shampoo telling you to "Lather, rinse, repeat" ? Cheers, Matthew -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 26 The Paddocks Savill Way Tel: +44 1628 476614 Marlow Fax: +44 0870 0522645 Bucks., SL7 1TH UK To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020721112737.GB26827>