man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Michael Kerrisk]

Gidday,

I just released man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60.

These releases are now available for download at:

    http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages
    or ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages

and soon at:

    ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages

These releases consist primarily of editorial changes, the
most notable being that man-pages is now standardized on
American spelling.  Formerly, different pages (and sometimes
even a single page!) employed American and British spelling
conventions (best to standardize on one spelling, and
American English is the standard in Computer Science).

Cheers,

Michael
(man-pages maintenance is supported by Google, as a Google engineer 20%
project.)


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7

Want to help with man page maintenance?  Grab the latest tarball at
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source files for 'FIXME'.

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Rob Landley]

On Monday 25 June 2007 05:50:07 Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> Gidday,
>
> I just released man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60.

Could you make a man-pages-latest symlink in the download directory?

I'm trying to keep an HTML copy of this (converted with doclifter) up to date 
(It'll be on http://kernel.org/doc after OLS but right now it's just at 
http://landley.net/kdocs/xmlman and yes I know the symlinks are screwed up, 
and there are inappropriate UTF-8 squigglies without the accompanying code 
page declaration.  Doclifter bugs, I'm working on it...)

Anyway, I only intermittently spot these notices going by on the list.  
Something I could check from a cron job would be nicer...

Thanks,

Rob
-- 
"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."
  - Ken Thompson.

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

Michael Kerrisk wrote:

> I just released man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60.
> 
> These releases are now available for download at:
> 
>     http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages

There is one little problem with this: there is no stable URL for a given 
version. This hurts, e.g., automated Linux From Scratch rebuilds (the 
official script grabs the URL from the book, but it becomes invalid too soon).

Could you please, in order to avoid this, do what SAMBA team does: place 
into http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/Old not only old 
versions, but also the current version? This way, LFS will be sure that the 
2.60 version is always available as 
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/Old/man-pages-2.60.tar.bz2 
(even if it is in fact the latest version).

Thanks in advance.

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Michael Kerrisk]

Alexander,

> > I just released man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60.
> > 
> > These releases are now available for download at:
> > 
> >     http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages

Yes, just this morning I decided to tidy away some of the old
tarballs into a newly created "old" directory.
 
> There is one little problem with this: there is no stable URL for a given 
> version. 

Well, there never really was.  To date, most old tarballs have
had only a limited life on kernel.org.

> This hurts, e.g., automated Linux From Scratch rebuilds (the 
> official script grabs the URL from the book, but it becomes invalid too
> soon).
>
> Could you please, in order to avoid this, do what SAMBA team does: place 
> into http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/Old not only old 
> versions, but also the current version? This way, LFS will be sure that
> the  2.60 version is always available as 

As noted above old versions never were "always available" on
kernel.org...

> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/Old/man-pages-2.60.tar.bz2 
> (even if it is in fact the latest version).

How about a link in /pub/linux/docs/manpages/ of the form 
"LATEST-IS-m.xy"?  Rob Landley was wanting something like this,
and I guess it would be easy for LFS to build a simple
script that looks for that link and deduces "man-pages-m.xy" 
from it.  (I've just now created such a link in the directory,
as an example.)

Cheers,

Michael
-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 

Want to help with man page maintenance?  
Grab the latest tarball at
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages , 
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source 
files for 'FIXME'.

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> How about a link in /pub/linux/docs/manpages/ of the form 
> "LATEST-IS-m.xy"?  Rob Landley was wanting something like this,
> and I guess it would be easy for LFS to build a simple
> script that looks for that link and deduces "man-pages-m.xy" 
> from it.  (I've just now created such a link in the directory,
> as an example.)

We don't care about the latest version, so the link neither helps nor hurts 
us. What's needed is that the URL and the MD5 sum for a version in the book 
don't change, and that LFS developers have a reasonable time (say, two 
weeks) to react to version updates. We don't want every other SVN commit to 
the book source to be a version update of man-pages :)

E.g., currently, the book at 
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/view/development/chapter03/packages.html 
says:

  Man-pages (2.56) - 1,764 KB:
     Download: 
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/man-pages-2.56.tar.bz2
     MD5 sum: 4144874a924b0a8d1f67e19f70d13f08

The script parses this information out of the XML source of the book, 
downloads the package and installs it according to the instructions found 
elsewhere in the book.

The script (jhalfs) and the book can be downloaded from svn:

svn co svn://svn.linuxfromscratch.org/ALFS/jhalfs/trunk jhalfs
svn co svn://svn.linuxfromscratch.org/LFS/trunk/BOOK lfs

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Michael Kerrisk]

> Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> > How about a link in /pub/linux/docs/manpages/ of the form 
> > "LATEST-IS-m.xy"?  Rob Landley was wanting something like this,
> > and I guess it would be easy for LFS to build a simple
> > script that looks for that link and deduces "man-pages-m.xy" 
> > from it.  (I've just now created such a link in the directory,
> > as an example.)
> 
> We don't care about the latest version, so the link neither helps nor
> hurts us. What's needed is that the URL and the MD5 sum for a 
> version in the book 
> don't change, and that LFS developers have a reasonable time (say, two 
> weeks) to react to version updates. 

Don't change for how long?  As I said, old versions never were
available "forever" on kernel.org -- usually they only stayed a 
few months, though lately the lifetime stretched out a little.

I don't really want to, for example, copy the tarball to 
two places each time.  That takes me extra time, and is prone
to errors (e.g., I might forget).

Cheers,

Michael
-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 

Want to help with man page maintenance?  
Grab the latest tarball at
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages , 
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source 
files for 'FIXME'.

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Bill Davidsen]

Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> Alexander,
> 
>>> I just released man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60.
>>>
>>> These releases are now available for download at:
>>>
>>>     http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages
> 
> Yes, just this morning I decided to tidy away some of the old
> tarballs into a newly created "old" directory.
>  
>> There is one little problem with this: there is no stable URL for a given 
>> version. 
> 
> Well, there never really was.  To date, most old tarballs have
> had only a limited life on kernel.org.
> 
Why? I'm not questioning the policy, it's just that if HUGE kernel 
versions are kept available forever, a tiny man page tar would not seem 
to be a disk space issue.

>> This hurts, e.g., automated Linux From Scratch rebuilds (the 
>> official script grabs the URL from the book, but it becomes invalid too
>> soon).
>>
>> Could you please, in order to avoid this, do what SAMBA team does: place 
>> into http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/Old not only old 
>> versions, but also the current version? This way, LFS will be sure that
>> the  2.60 version is always available as 
> 
> As noted above old versions never were "always available" on
> kernel.org...
> 
>> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/Old/man-pages-2.60.tar.bz2 
>> (even if it is in fact the latest version).
> 
> How about a link in /pub/linux/docs/manpages/ of the form 
> "LATEST-IS-m.xy"?  Rob Landley was wanting something like this,
> and I guess it would be easy for LFS to build a simple
> script that looks for that link and deduces "man-pages-m.xy" 
> from it.  (I've just now created such a link in the directory,
> as an example.)
> 
Why not just a link with a fixed name (LATEST?) which could be updated? 
I assume installing a new version is automated to create and install the 
tar, any needed links, the push to mirrors, etc. So it would just be a 
single step added to an automated procedure. You could have a link in 
"Old" as requested, and any other links as well.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Michael Kerrisk]

Bill,
 
> >> There is one little problem with this: there is no stable URL for a
> >> given version. 
> > 
> > Well, there never really was.  To date, most old tarballs have
> > had only a limited life on kernel.org.
> > 
> Why? I'm not questioning the policy, it's just that if HUGE kernel 
> versions are kept available forever, a tiny man page tar would not seem 
> to be a disk space issue.

It's not a space issue -- it's just a question of
clutter.  Even though I've been the maintainer for coming up
for 2.5 years now, Andries was still doing the uploads onto
kernel.org until about a year or so ago.  I think Andries used
to clear down old versions periodically just so it was easier to
see which version was the latest.  Since I started doing
the uploads, I hadn't cleared away any old versions, but 
yesterday I noticed that the list of files in the directory
is getting long, so that it's hard to see what version is latest.
So I created the directory "old" and moved all the old stuff in 
there.  Alexander notes that this causes some problem for the LFS
folk, since their scripts expect the tarballs to be in stable
locations for longer periods.  (I was of course unaware of this.)

> >> This hurts, e.g., automated Linux From Scratch rebuilds (the 
> >> official script grabs the URL from the book, but it becomes 
> >> invalid too soon).
[...]
> > How about a link in /pub/linux/docs/manpages/ of the form 
> > "LATEST-IS-m.xy"?  Rob Landley was wanting something like this,
> > and I guess it would be easy for LFS to build a simple
> > script that looks for that link and deduces "man-pages-m.xy" 
> > from it.  (I've just now created such a link in the directory,
> > as an example.)
> > 
> Why not just a link with a fixed name (LATEST?) which could be updated? 
> I assume installing a new version is automated 

There is no automation on my part.  Each time I do a release, I
use scp to upload the .tar.gz and .lsm files, and some kernel.org 
scripts automagically create the .bz2 and .sign files.

To maintain any sort of link will either require me to
write some script, or manually create the links.

> to create and install the 
> tar, any needed links, the push to mirrors, etc. So it would just be a 
> single step added to an automated procedure. 

Yes, I'll write a script to create suitable links.

> You could have a link in 
> "Old" as requested, and any other links as well.

Well, I think all that LFS seems to want is links that are
stable "for a while" (since I don't suppose that they want
to use really old tarballs in any case). So, for 
the benefit of LFS, I'll just be less aggressive about
moving tarballs into "Old" (I'll leave them sitting in http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/
for a few months at least.)

Cheers,

Michael
-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 

Want to help with man page maintenance?  
Grab the latest tarball at
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages , 
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source 
files for 'FIXME'.

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

Michael Kerrisk wrote:

> Well, I think all that LFS seems to want is links that are
> stable "for a while" (since I don't suppose that they want
> to use really old tarballs in any case). So, for 
> the benefit of LFS, I'll just be less aggressive about
> moving tarballs into "Old" (I'll leave them sitting in http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/
> for a few months at least.)

If this helps, here is the version information.

Stable LFS (version 6.2, released on August 3, 2006) tells users to download 
man-pages 2.34 (two releases old at that time). LFS-6.3 is expected to be 
released in two months or so, thus a one-year period before moving tarballs 
to "Old" should be enough even for stable LFS books (and if we agree on 
that, I'll close http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ticket/2037 as invalid).

Thanks for cooperation.

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Michael Kerrisk]

> > Well, I think all that LFS seems to want is links that are
> > stable "for a while" (since I don't suppose that they want
> > to use really old tarballs in any case). So, for 
> > the benefit of LFS, I'll just be less aggressive about
> > moving tarballs into "Old" (I'll leave them sitting in
> http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages/
> > for a few months at least.)
> 
> If this helps, here is the version information.
> 
> Stable LFS (version 6.2, released on August 3, 2006) tells users to
> download 
> man-pages 2.34 (two releases old at that time). LFS-6.3 is expected to be 
> released in two months or so, thus a one-year period before moving
> tarballs 
> to "Old" should be enough even for stable LFS books (and if we agree on 
> that, I'll close http://wiki.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/ticket/2037 as
> invalid).
> 
> Thanks for cooperation.

Alex: Okay -- I've set up a script that ensures that
the "Archive" directory (was "Old") always includes links
to the latest versions of the pages, so you can be guaranteed
that links in Archive should always be stable (I don't know 
that I'll ever actually remove files from that directory).

Rob: the script also creates a LATEST-IS-m.xy file in 
/pub/linux/docs/manpages.

Cheers,

Michael
-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 

Want to help with man page maintenance?  
Grab the latest tarball at
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/manpages , 
read the HOWTOHELP file and grep the source 
files for 'FIXME'.

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> Alex: Okay -- I've set up a script that ensures that
> the "Archive" directory (was "Old") always includes links
> to the latest versions of the pages, so you can be guaranteed
> that links in Archive should always be stable (I don't know 
> that I'll ever actually remove files from that directory).

Thank you!

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov

Re: man-pages-2.59 and man-pages-2.60 are released

[Rob Landley]

On Friday 29 June 2007 04:30:21 Michael Kerrisk wrote:
> > You could have a link in
> > "Old" as requested, and any other links as well.
>
> Well, I think all that LFS seems to want is links that are
> stable "for a while" (since I don't suppose that they want
> to use really old tarballs in any case).

What I did in busybox is uploaded it into "old" at the same time I uploaded it 
into the directory above that, and then deleted it out of the upper directory 
when I no longer recommended anybody use it.  But old provided a stable link 
from day 1.

Rob
-- 
"One of my most productive days was throwing away 1000 lines of code."
  - Ken Thompson.