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So what's the deal with Debians default Manpage viewer?

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spectre_25gt
Posts: 1
Joined: 2005-12-14 06:08

So what's the deal with Debians default Manpage viewer?

#1 Post by spectre_25gt »

Call me finicky, but I'm used to VI style navigation while using man pages. In the installation of Debian that I just got going, however, the man pages are acting quite strangely. I can only move through by hitting enter and it doesn't seem as though there's any way to back up at all. It's really been driving me up the wall, actually. Anyone know what the difference is? Is there a switch that I can make an alias to or something?

Penguin Skinner
Posts: 709
Joined: 2005-09-15 20:37
Location: North by Northwest

#2 Post by Penguin Skinner »

You need to change the PAGER environment variable.

Example: to use 'less' as the system file pager - assuming you use bash, and also assuming you have 'less' installed (which it wasn't on my Debian install) - add the following to your /etc/profile file:

Code: Select all

export PAGER="less -X"
The same syntax can be used to change the pager on a per-user basis by adding to ~/.bashrc (if memory serves me correctly; bash uses a number of different config files, in various degrees of priority.)

anon

#3 Post by anon »

Like spectre_25g said, less isn't installed per default, just install it and it will be the default manpage viewer.

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