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Linux distribs lacking perldoc
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| axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk 2005-07-25, 9:30 am |
| Having recently installed Linux Mandrake 10.1 onto a very cheap ex-M$
XP system I had purchased a couple of years ago to give myself
Internet access over Christmas and Hogmanay, I was quite surprised
to see that 'perldoc' was not installed.
Perhaps it was just the version of Mandrake I had... or are the
Linux distros starting to mess around with even more meddling in
what should be straight-forward and full installations? [OT]
This is not an idle thought - it may just be possible that many
people do not have working 'perldoc perlX' on their system, although
'man perlX' works, albeit not for modules.
[OT] Off-topic rant. Why cannot the newer linux distros be content
to let standards remain standards.
I don't want to waste more than half-an-hour figuring out how to
disable vim perl language specific plugins which make it impossible
to cut-and-paste. Maybe good to have them... if and only if I want
them.
Nor do I do not want my rm, cp, mv commands aliased to anything else in
any way, least of all in such a way that I have to waste time
finding where they are aliased and then disabling that.
Axel
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| Sherm Pendley 2005-07-25, 5:33 pm |
| axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk writes:
> Perhaps it was just the version of Mandrake I had... or are the
> Linux distros starting to mess around with even more meddling in
> what should be straight-forward and full installations? [OT]
Why should a full installation of Perl be the default? Few computer users
know what Perl is or need its documentation. Most just want to send email
and surf the web - for those folks, the full pods directory and perldoc tool
is just wasted HD space.
For that reason, many Linux distros choose to provide perldoc and pods as a
separate package. Debian, for instance, has packages called "perl-base" and
"perl-doc".
Many distros also ask upon installation what the machine will be used for -
Server, Desktop, Developer, etc. I haven't checked, by presumably the Developer
configuration should install the relevant docs package by default.
sherm--
--
Cocoa programming in Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net
Hire me! My resume: http://www.dot-app.org
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| gargoyle 2005-07-25, 10:06 pm |
| On 2005-07-25, axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk <axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk> wrote:
> Having recently installed Linux Mandrake 10.1 onto a very cheap ex-M$
> XP system I had purchased a couple of years ago to give myself
> Internet access over Christmas and Hogmanay, I was quite surprised
> to see that 'perldoc' was not installed.
>
> Perhaps it was just the version of Mandrake I had... or are the
> Linux distros starting to mess around with even more meddling in
> what should be straight-forward and full installations? [OT]
>
> This is not an idle thought - it may just be possible that many
> people do not have working 'perldoc perlX' on their system, although
> 'man perlX' works, albeit not for modules.
>
> [OT] Off-topic rant. Why cannot the newer linux distros be content
> to let standards remain standards.
>
> I don't want to waste more than half-an-hour figuring out how to
> disable vim perl language specific plugins which make it impossible
> to cut-and-paste. Maybe good to have them... if and only if I want
> them.
>
> Nor do I do not want my rm, cp, mv commands aliased to anything else in
> any way, least of all in such a way that I have to waste time
> finding where they are aliased and then disabling that.
FWIW, OpenBSD ships with a complete Perl environment in the base system.
Despite that, it's a very minimalist system, which tries to remain true
to its Unix roots. You may wish to give it a shot. If you know Linux,
making the jump is a piece of cake. And the man pages are most
excellent, much better than anything I've seen elsewhere. It's a really
friendly environment for developpers and sy mins.
Incidentally the package system has just recently been overhauled and
now the tools are written in Perl instead of C. More info here:
http://mongers.org/openbsd/interview-espie-ports
After using Linux (slackware then debian) for nearly a decade, I
switched to OpenBSD and found it a dream to deal with. No way I'll ever
go back. The only thing I find myself wishing for is that CPAN get
integraged with the packages/ports system, so that you could install
Perl modules in either of 3 ways and have version tracking, dependancies,
etc. be resolved correctly. Then I will have reached nirvana. ;-)
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| axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk 2005-07-26, 9:02 am |
| gargoyle <gargoyle@no.spam> wrote:
> FWIW, OpenBSD ships with a complete Perl environment in the base system.
> Despite that, it's a very minimalist system, which tries to remain true
> to its Unix roots. You may wish to give it a shot. If you know Linux,
> making the jump is a piece of cake. And the man pages are most
> excellent, much better than anything I've seen elsewhere. It's a really
> friendly environment for developpers and symins.
Thanks. I'll probably do that if and when I get a new machine,
unless I can convert an old laptop that I have sitting around. I
like the look of BSD in general but have not had much chance to
use it (except for the variant shipped with MAC OS X). It reminds
me very much of SunOS before Solaris.
> Incidentally the package system has just recently been overhauled and
> now the tools are written in Perl instead of C. More info here:
> http://mongers.org/openbsd/interview-espie-ports
> After using Linux (slackware then debian) for nearly a decade, I
> switched to OpenBSD and found it a dream to deal with. No way I'll ever
> go back. The only thing I find myself wishing for is that CPAN get
> integraged with the packages/ports system, so that you could install
> Perl modules in either of 3 ways and have version tracking, dependancies,
> etc. be resolved correctly. Then I will have reached nirvana. ;-)
Actually I think I will have a bash with that laptop later today.
Axel
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| Damian James 2005-07-26, 10:03 pm |
| On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 12:10:09 GMT, axel@white-eagle.invalid.uk said:
> ...
> I like the look of BSD in general but have not had much chance to
> use it (except for the variant shipped with MAC OS X). It reminds
> me very much of SunOS before Solaris.
SunOS before Solaris *was* BSD.
> ...
> Actually I think I will have a bash with that laptop later today.
Best of luck! Shouldn't need it, if you have some idea what you are
doing, OpenBSD is one of the easiest systems to install and get
working nicely.
--Damian
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