At 11:07 AM 1/26/1999 -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >In a message dated 1/26/99 9:55:07 AM Central Standard Time, >[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > >> hello, very simple. Man-db is not necessary to run linux. it is nice to >> have but if you don't have man linux can still run. the other reason why >> man is not included in the base distribution is the space issue. >> > >I see that point, but.... > >* How big is it, really, especially tarred and gzipped. I can't imagine one >more boot disk is that big of an issue. If it's more than one disk, maybe a >subset of the manpages is warranted that CAN be included. > >* Being that man is the basic help system of Linux, it's too important to NOT >include in the boot disks. ESPECIALLY for new users. > >* Man may not be required, but everyone on this list constantly points to man >pages. The reference manuals constantly point to man pages. It's totally >frustrating to be told to read the man pages, but you don't have them, and >can't figure out how to get them because you don't have the man pages. > >Jay
But is it necessary for the boot disks? At this stage of the installation you don't have a lot more functionality which is usable than you did after booting from the rescue disk. The purpose of base is to get enough of a system installed and working so that the user can run dselect and perform the installation of additional packages (from a hard disk, mass quantities of floppies, cdrom or a network connection, including nfs and ppp.) This is the appropriate time to install man-db (the man page for dselect isn't particularly helpful anyway.) Bob ---- Bob Nielsen Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tucson, AZ AMPRnet: [EMAIL PROTECTED] DM42nh http://www.primenet.com/~nielsen
