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I just started playing with a few new Linux distributions, and noticed that a "base" image of openSUSE I was given doesn't have man pages installed out-of-the-box. I was under the impression that man pages were typically provided in most Linux distros as sort of de-facto documentation users could expect across the larger ecosystem.

So, as a newer Linux user, can I expect man pages to be there "as the norm", or does it truly differ from distro to distro? If it does differ, what are some of the tradeoffs distros consider when deciding to include or leave out man pages?

ismail
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thauburger
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2 Answers2

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openSUSE/SUSE guy here. man-pages are not installed on base due to really-small space requirements. You can install it with

sudo zypper in man-pages
ismail
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It truly differs on distro to distro,sometimes distro's comes in different flavour ,other distros comes with all the the applications that you imagine other came with just a terminal like gento/arch.

If you can't manage to install i included below a tutorial how to install man pages.

1)First, find out which section your man page belongs to. If its a command, it probably belongs to the section 1 .You can read the manpage for the man command Manpage icon to see a description of the different sections and their corresponding numbers.

2)Copy your man page to /usr/local/share/man/man1/ (change 1 to your section number if need be). You can also install it to /usr/share/man/man1/, but it's best practise to use the local directory for files that are installed without using the APT package manager:

sudo cp examplecommand. /usr/local/share/man/man1/

3)Run the mandb command. This will update man's internal database:

sudo mandb

4.That's it! You should be able to view the man page by running:

man 1 examplecommand