In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you write: > >On Sat, 1 Jun 1996, Guy Maor wrote: > >> On Sat, 1 Jun 1996, Richard Lovison wrote: >> >> > While using man to read a manpage I am not able to scroll backwards a page >> > by using "b" or "^B". >> >> more can't go backwards on unseekable files, like pipes for example. >> (man pipes the data out to the viewer so it'll start up faster.) > >Hmmm. If my memory serves me right I was able to do this on my old >Slackware setup and I am currently able to do this on my provider's system >which is running System V Release 4.0. BTW, this is not a complaint, >just a statement indicating my confusion and ignorance. :)
Those systems maybe format the manpage to a temporary file, then use more to view that file. Debian's man put the formatted output through a pipe directly to the pager, for speed. >> less doesn't have this deficiency. Use it with man by setting the >> PAGER environment variable to `less'. Note that you can also do: $ export MANOPT='-Pless' so that you only get less when viewing manpages, not as your default pager (if for some reason you don't like less :) Austin
