2

I would like to know if man has a directory where it stores all the man pages and if it updates itself or it is updated and upgraded through apt update and apt upgrade? Anyone have any useful insight?

4
  • superuser.com/questions/318555/…
    – Rinzwind
    Jun 24, 2017 at 16:45
  • apt update only updates the package indexes as far as I’m aware, apt upgrade is what actually upgrades programs
    – user669400
    Jun 24, 2017 at 16:45
  • Could you please answer the second part of the question also?
    – NerdOfCode
    Jun 24, 2017 at 16:45
  • @NerdOfCode to address second part of your question, see my answer ;)
    – Ravexina
    Jun 24, 2017 at 20:22

3 Answers 3

4

Yes, man has a directory. Whenever apt updates or installs a package, it will also add the new or updated versions of the manuals to the manpages directory.

As such, there are very few cases where a manpage will update outside of apt triggering that update as part of an automatic install.

1
  • Exactly what I was looking for.
    – NerdOfCode
    Jun 25, 2017 at 3:13
4

When you install a package, dpkg also extract package's manual pages in the expected directories, after that it's going to trigger a mandb update, then mandb updates the manual page caches.

You can run it manually if you like sudo mandb, mandb.

To find about paths which "mandb" uses to index manuals you can use manpath command and to find an specific man page use -w switch from man command like: man -w man.

0
1

Yes, man has a directory concerning man pages: /usr/share/man.

A more detailed explanation can be found here.

Also, aptitude does update man pages. Just run sudo apt-get install wine and you will notice that there are man pages explaining the inner workings of wine.

In addition, this doesn't really concern ubuntu as generally as it should; it alludes more towards system administration. As such, this question should be migrated to super user, where it will promptly get a 'duplicate'. A simple google search could have saved you time. Have a look.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .