What use are these (rpm) entries in 'man'?

[Aaron Konstam]

On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 09:00 -0400, Robert Locke wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 11:02 +0000, Chris G wrote:
> <snip>
> > Adding the (rpm) entries means that the whatis database is no longer a
> > "set of database files containing short descriptions of system
> > commands" because the things it puts in there are *not* system
> > commands.
> 
> Never has been.  Only the things in "chapter 1" are really "system
> commands".  The whatis database was initially a summary of the
> description lines of each of the man pages, but that has included
> commands, files, library functions, etc.  Looking at the chapter told
> you what it was.  But now there are things on the system that have no
> traditional man page, but might be what you are looking for.  So some
> folks hacked in the (rpm) chapter so that we at least no about the
> existence of those facilities when we "search our system" even though
> they do not have a traditional man page....
> 
> I think it's a neat idea....
> 
> --Rob
> 
Well there are two problems.
1. chapter 8 also has system commands..
2. Something has ruined this process so that now all I get from man -k
or apropos is (rpm) files. It must have been an update of some sort. Any
ideas out there? For example system-config-printer shows up as a (rpm)
file.
--
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A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is
not worth knowing.
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net