Missing man page

[Matt Zimmerman]

Binary package hint: firefox

firefox provides a slave symlink for x-www-browser.1.gz, but the file it refers to is missing.

potpal:[~] sudo update-alternatives --config x-www-browser

There is only 1 program which provides x-www-browser
(/usr/bin/firefox). Nothing to configure.
potpal:[~] ls -l /usr/share/man/man1/x-www-browser.1.gz /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz
ls: /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz: No such file or directory
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 2007-05-16 21:54 /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser.1.gz -> /usr/share/man/man1/firefox.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 2005-07-06 17:48 /usr/share/man/man1/x-www-browser.1.gz -> /etc/alternatives/x-www-browser.1.gz
zsh: exit 2 ls --color=tty -l /usr/share/man/man1/x-www-browser.1.gz

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

guess the Closes syntax was wrong. So manual,

firefox (2.0.0.4+2-0ubuntu1) gutsy; urgency=low

  * new upstream security/stability update (Closes: LP#117990)
  * MFSA2007-17 aka CVE-2007-2871: XUL Popup Spoofing
  * MFSA2007-16 aka CVE-2007-2870: XSS using addEventListener
  * MFSA2007-14 aka CVE-2007-1362: Path Abuse in Cookies
  * MFSA2007-13 aka CVE-2007-2869: Persistent Autocomplete Denial of Service
  * MFSA2007-12 aka CVE-2007-2867 (layout engine) + CVE-2007-2868
    (javascript engine): Crashes with evidence of memory corruption
  * drop upstream applied patches:
      bz312998-GetVisibility-patch.patch,
      bz358930-gradient-spread-method-pad-fix.patch,
      bz366844-mozilla-configure-in-patch-to-workaround-gcc-visibility-bug.patch
  * adapted patches to upstream codebase changes:
      bz273524-gnome-mime-registry-ubuntu.patch
  * debian/firefox.1, debian/firefox.manpages: install firefox.1 (Closes: LP#115112)
  * install gnome-www-browser alternative in postinst and remove
    that alternative in prerm - copied over from feisty
  * debian/firefox.preinst: uninstall x-www-browser and mozilla alternative
  * debian/firefox-dev.install: install nsBuildID.h to /usr/include/firefox/
    (Closes: LP#115630)

 -- Alexander Sack <email address hidden> Tue, 15 May 2007 12:10:00 +0200

[Olivier Mengué (dolmen)]

The man page is missing again in the Firefox 3 package (3.0+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1), so I'm changing the status to reopen the bug.

[Petter Eklund (denbevingadebaevern)]

I also got a missing man page, I find it kind of weird that such an important application as firefox doesn't get a man page.

[John Vivirito (gnomefreak)]

Petter Eklund wrote:
> I also got a missing man page, I find it kind of weird that such an
> important application as firefox doesn't get a man page.
>
>
What would you like the man page to have in it? firefox --help gives
everything you need, none of the Mozilla apps we package have man pages
or atleast most of them. I will again ping Alexander so he can think
about this.

--
Sincerely Yours,
    John Vivirito

https://launchpad.net/~gnomefreak
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/JohnVivirito
Linux User# 414246

[Olivier Mengué (dolmen)]

John, why not just take the man page that Alexander did put in Firefox 2?

[Olivier Mengué (dolmen)]

Confirmed by Petter Eklund.

[Connor Imes (ckimes)]

Thank you for reopening this and adding FF3 to it.
Marking this bug as Triaged with Medium importance for firefox-3.0
Will nominate for Hardy and Intrepid.

[Jordan Erickson (lns)]

Yeah, what's up with no man page! :)

Sure would be nice to make it MANDATORY for any package to be accepted into a (LTS, at least) release to have a man page. Us sysadmins rely on them!

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

Yes, this would be grand for Jaunty. Without a man page it can be challenging to figure out how to manage / change profiles, if you have a broken one and can't start Firefox to even google it. This has happened to me more than once :)

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

This was actually released for Firefox 2. It's Firefox 3 with the issue.

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

This is a problem again for firefox 3.6 in Lucid. Especially since this is an LTS, I think this should be fixed.

Also, as per Debian policy, "Each program, utility, and function should have an associated manual page included in the same package.... If no manual page is available, this is considered as a bug and should be reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System (the maintainer of the package is allowed to write this bug report themselves, if they so desire). Do not close the bug report until a proper man page is available. " [1] Obviously that's Debian and not Ubuntu policy, but still, it's not very hard to add a man page, and more documentation never hurt anyone.

[1] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

Also, it looks like Debian has a man page for their iceweasel package, so that should be easy to port to firefox if need be.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 05:13:40PM -0000, Gabe Gorelick wrote:
> This is a problem again for firefox 3.6 in Lucid. Especially since this
> is an LTS, I think this should be fixed.
>
> Also, as per Debian policy, "Each program, utility, and function should
> have an associated manual page included in the same package.... If no
> manual page is available, this is considered as a bug and should be
> reported to the Debian Bug Tracking System (the maintainer of the
> package is allowed to write this bug report themselves, if they so
> desire). Do not close the bug report until a proper man page is
> available. " [1] Obviously that's Debian and not Ubuntu policy, but
> still, it's not very hard to add a man page, and more documentation
> never hurt anyone.
>
> [1] http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-docs.html
>
> ** Changed in: firefox (Ubuntu)
> Status: Fix Released => New

please dont reopen bugs for fixed things that regressed recently. File new
bugs.

 status fixreleased

 - Alexander

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

Well, it's not really a recent regression, it's the same regression that plagued FF 3, which is listed on this bug report. It's just that the "firefox" package is firefox 2 for old releases and now firefox 3.6 for Lucid, so technically this should be new for Lucid and Fix Released for the older versions. But until Launchpad adds the ability to really do that, I've opened a new bug for FF 3.6 (bug #533038). Sorry for the confusion.

[Olivier Mengué (dolmen)]

Confirming the fix in Firefox 12.