On 4 August 2015 at 16:39, Eli Zaretskii <e...@gnu.org> wrote: >> You could easily install and access multiple versions of manuals >> side-by-side, by configuring with --program-suffix. Taking the example >> of Texinfo, you could access different versions of the Texinfo manual >> with "info texinfo-5.0", "info texinfo-4.13", etc. > > Users can already have that, by placing each version in its own > directory and adding that directory to INFOPATH. How is this better > or even significantly different?
Convenience. People won't want to write an INFOPATH in their .bashrc or wherever which is dozens of entries long. Also it would save editing dir files by hand to add versioned entries. Speaking for myself, I know I would certainly install multiple versions of the Texinfo manuals, and multiple versions of some other manuals as well, if it was convenient to do so. Suppose for example I wanted to have the Texinfo 4.13 manual handy, then I could build from that release. "make install" would by default install the Info files under /usr/local/share/info, overriding those that are already there. I could create a new directory and specify that as the "infodir" to configure (like /usr/local/share/info/texinfo-4.13), but then I would have to add that new directory to INFOPATH and update or restart all of my terminal sessions. Then accessing the manual still wouldn't be as easy as "info texinfo-4.13". The only ways I can think of are either "info --all texinfo" followed by selecting a menu entry, or else give the full path to the installed Info file, which is too much to type. Really it's not worth the trouble. > I don't think we should promote a semi-broken solution to this > problem. I think we should look for a complete solution. Can you elaborate on what would constitute a complete solution? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
