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Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic)

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On 05/30/2020 05:57 AM, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Sat, May 30, 2020 at 04:52:47AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
>> I the recent thread about returning a Debian installation to its
>> original state "popularity-contest" was mentioned.
>>
>> I wished to compare it to other tools mentioned in that thread.
>> Obvious stating point -- read the man page.
>> As I never installed its package I went to https://manpages.debian.org/buster/popularity-contest/popularity-contest.8.en.html
>> .

_Clarification by OP_

I had not installed popularity-contest _for cause_:
   a. its phone-home feature violates my security & privacy policy.
   b. it would pull in unneeded packages which might interfere with
      intentionally installed package(s) to serve similar functions.

>>
>> It did not explicitly answer my question.
>> However, under "SEE ALSO" it stated:
>>> Additional documentation is in /usr/share/doc/popularity-contest/.
>>
>> *PROBLEM*
>> As package is not installed, that directory does *NOT* exist.
>>
>> Where to find required documentation on the web?
>>
>> NOTE BENE
>> This post is about man pages as a class.
> 
> Of course, it would be nice to have everything in the man page.
> That is in general difficult, since upstream doesn't always
> do it this way -- packaging isn't the place to change that.
> 
> That said, it's possible to browse Debian packages sources
> in the 'net.
> 
> I'll show how to do it based on your concrete example.
> 
> First, the structure of a source package doesn't correspond
> to the installed binary package; the reference given in the
> above "SEE ALSO" is relative to the binary package. So first
> you have a look at popularity-contest's "list of files", that's
> in <https://packages.debian.org/> (I'm assuming buster):
> 
>    https://packages.debian.org/buster/all/popularity-contest/filelist
> 
> (Of course you can click your way through to this URL).

I strongly recommend that methodology to those reading this thread 
because they have a similar problem. I suspect that in the long term, 
having followed the intervening links and cross references will prove 
more valuable than the targeted final URLs.

> 
> You can see that in /usr/share/doc/... there is a FAQ, a README,
> a changelog, a copyright and a subdirectory examples.
> 
> Now you go to the corresponding place in <https://sources.debian.org/>:
> 
>    https://sources.debian.org/src/popularity-contest/1.67/
> 
> There they are: FAQ, README and examples (the two missing ones
> are Debian infrastructure and live in the subdir debian).
> 
> Note that it won't work this way always and 100%, because
> package installation /might/ do some magic, which you may
> look up in debian/rules, debian/postinst, etc. -- but that's
> it, more or less.
> 
> Enjoy
> -- tomás
> 

Thank you.

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Thread

Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-05-30 12:00 +0200
  Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-05-30 13:00 +0200
    Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-05-30 15:40 +0200
  Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-05-30 15:50 +0200
    Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2020-05-30 16:20 +0200
  Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) l0f4r0@tuta.io - 2020-05-30 16:20 +0200
    Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-05-30 17:00 +0200
      Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-05-30 17:10 +0200
        Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-05-30 23:10 +0200
          Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-06-01 09:00 +0200
          Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-06-02 13:20 +0200
            Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2020-06-02 16:40 +0200
            Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-06-02 17:10 +0200
  Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-05-30 16:50 +0200
  Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Ralph Katz <ralph@ralphkatz.com> - 2020-06-01 23:20 +0200
    Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-06-02 00:10 +0200
      Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Bob Weber <bobrweber@gmail.com> - 2020-06-02 00:30 +0200
      Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) l0f4r0@tuta.io - 2020-06-02 01:00 +0200
      Something is buggy - was [Re: Debian man pages have annoying  feature(sic)] Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-06-02 15:10 +0200
        Re: Something is buggy - was [Re: Debian man pages have annoying  feature(sic)] The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2020-06-02 15:50 +0200
          Re: Something is buggy - was [Re: Debian man pages have annoying  feature(sic)] Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-06-02 17:50 +0200
            Re: Something is buggy - was [Re: Debian man pages have annoying  feature(sic)] Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-06-03 07:30 +0200
        Re: Something is buggy - was [Re: Debian man pages have annoying  feature(sic)] l0f4r0@tuta.io - 2020-06-02 16:30 +0200
  [CLARIFICATION] Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net> - 2020-06-02 12:40 +0200
    Re: [CLARIFICATION] Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2020-06-02 14:40 +0200
  Re: Debian man pages have annoying feature(sic) Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2020-06-02 16:40 +0200

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