In Linux, how to get the man page for compiled programs?

Question

I know that installing a package through APT (apt-get or aptitude for my computer) will automatically install the appropriate man pages and update the man database. When I want to build the same packages, however, no man page is installed and I cannot use man for that program. How do I get the man pages for software I have compiled? (I am running Ubuntu 10.10).

Answer 1

Are you configuring your software build with the default locations (in /usr) and installing as root? (but not building as root i hope). If so, then the man pages, if there are any, should be installed where man can already see them.

If you are installing to a nonstandard location, you need to let man know where they are. You can use the MANPATH environment variable to do this. Set it to the normal man directories, and add your install dir to it as well. Something like export MANPATH=/usr/share/man:/path/to/your/dir

EDIT: Also, I am not sure about the 'man database'. There really isn't one. There are some distributions that do post processing of the man pages, either compress it, or uncompress it. But they don't really keep a list of man pages anywhere. In pseudo code:

for DIR in $MANPATH
    for SEC in $MANSECTIONS (or just the one section if you give as `-s SEC`)
        open dirlist for $DIR/man${SEC}
        in dir list list, look for $COMMAND.$SEC
        if you find it, display and exit

This may be your issue. If you installed to a non-standard dir, is the naming convention right? If you have a file bubba.1, then the file should be installed into some path /path/to/bubba/install/man1/bubba.1 and MANPATH=/usr/share/man:/path/to/bubba/install