From Newsgroup: comp.unix.solaris

Dear comp.unix.questions,

Is pacman, the package manager used by MSYS2 on Windows, the most
stupid package manager interface ever devised? I ask, because I
believe I have not used all of them yet, and I'm in no hurry to
find anything more stupid.

Corollary, is the package naming convention and/or search terms
indexed by the MSYS2 team the most stupid ever, or can we find
examples of a more stupid system?

How do you find the command to run /man/ in pacman? And why is
it not listed as a dependency, when a package contains a man page?
--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.solaris

16.08.2026 12:43, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:

Dear comp.unix.questions,

Is pacman, the package manager used by MSYS2 on Windows, the most
stupid package manager interface ever devised?-a I ask, because I
believe I have not used all of them yet, and I'm in no hurry to
find anything more stupid.

Corollary, is the package naming convention and/or search terms
indexed by the MSYS2 team the most stupid ever, or can we find
examples of a more stupid system?

How do you find the command to run /man/ in pacman?-a And why is
it not listed as a dependency, when a package contains a man page?

pacman is a package manager used primarily in Arch Linux (and developed by Arch developers).

It is able to do everything you've described and depends entirely on building script (PKGBUILD). If packager specified man as runtime dependency - it will be installed.

On the other hand, man isn't REQUIRED to run anything, so it may be specified as OPTIONAL dependency which won't be installed with package. See https://archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/man-db/ for example - some packages requires man to be installed, some packages specifies man as build dependency, some - as optional one.

So it is not a stupid pacman, but packaging process specifics.
--
WBR, Stanislav Nikitin a.k.a. pztrn.
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.solaris

On 16/08/2026 5:13 PM, Stanislav N. aka pztrn wrote:

16.08.2026 12:43, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:

Dear comp.unix.questions,

Is pacman, the package manager used by MSYS2 on Windows, the most
stupid package manager interface ever devised?-a I ask, because I
believe I have not used all of them yet, and I'm in no hurry to
find anything more stupid.

Corollary, is the package naming convention and/or search terms
indexed by the MSYS2 team the most stupid ever, or can we find
examples of a more stupid system?

How do you find the command to run /man/ in pacman?-a And why is
it not listed as a dependency, when a package contains a man page?

pacman is a package manager used primarily in Arch Linux (and developed
by Arch developers).

It is able to do everything you've described and depends entirely on building script (PKGBUILD). If packager specified man as runtime
dependency - it will be installed.

On the other hand, man isn't REQUIRED to run anything, so it may be specified as OPTIONAL dependency which won't be installed with package.
See https://archlinux.org/packages/core/x86_64/man-db/ for example -
some packages requires man to be installed, some packages specifies man
as build dependency, some - as optional one.

So it is not a stupid pacman, but packaging process specifics.

Wait, are you trying to claim hiding the /search/ behind the
installation switch, -Ss, isn't stupid?

You're trying to claim there's any sensible mnemonic for -S other than
/suck this/?

You think it's normal to search pacman -Ss man, and not find the command
that reads man pages at all? I mean, why did I get a list of all the
fucking packages? Which one reads man pages?

And why the fuck in the world is the package that /seems/ to read man
pages named /groff/? Who the fuck is groff, and why is he reading my
man pages?


Can't we get the normal Unix roff guy to do this for us?
--
Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;
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From Newsgroup: comp.unix.solaris

16.08.2026 15:22, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:

Wait, are you trying to claim hiding the /search/ behind the
installation switch, -Ss, isn't stupid?

Does making THREE DIFFERENT commands, two of them are completely different applications, for using package manager makes sense? Hello, Debian and derivatives, with apt, apt-* and aptitude.

You're trying to claim there's any sensible mnemonic for -S other than
/suck this/?

Package manager specifics. At least "query" thing they made with some grain of logic. BTW, you're looking for "-Qo" for getting package that owns some binary, IIRC.

You think it's normal to search pacman -Ss man, and not find the command
that reads man pages at all?-a I mean, why did I get a list of all the fucking packages?-a Which one reads man pages?

Default behavior of kind-of-full-text-search, that searches names and descriptions.

And why the fuck in the world is the package that /seems/ to read man
pages named /groff/?-a Who the fuck is groff, and why is he reading my
man pages?

Can't we get the normal Unix roff guy to do this for us?

Actually, for ACCESSING man pages I thing you have to install man-db...

But that's on Arch, I do not remember how it is called in MSYS environment.
--
WBR, Stanislav Nikitin a.k.a. pztrn.
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