Re: Adding makemandb as build tool for man.db

[David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>]

On Tue, 9 Oct 2018 at 10:08, Robert Swindells <rjs%fdy2.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
>
> David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost> wrote:
> >On lower powered (and particularly lower memory boxes), the makemandb
> >on first boot after install can run for some time and significantly
> >affect the performance of the system (in extreme cases for several
> >hours).
> >
> >We already have makewhatis as a build tool. What do people think of
> >adding makemandb and including man.db to the distribution (potentially
> >optionally).
> >
> >The downside is it would around double the size of man.tgz if enabled,
> >but it would avoid a particularly bad first impression for anyone
> >installing on an smaller boxes such as embedded arm/x86 (so not just
> >vax/m68k/sh3/sparc users :-p)
>
> Or just turn off building the man page database on slower systems by
> default. I do this on my mac68k machine and on development systems that
> get frequently rebooted.

I'd definitely support this option - possibly put it in the nightly cron?

David