Bug 2404910 - groff: Add man(7) to groff-base
Summary: groff: Add man(7) to groff-base
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: groff
Version: rawhide
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Nikola Forró
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2025-10-18 11:47 UTC by ricky.tigg
Modified: 2026-06-24 17:59 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

Fixed In Version: man-pages-6.13-5.fc45
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


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System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Red Hat Issue Tracker PTG-1138 0 None None None 2026-04-17 16:17:42 UTC

Description ricky.tigg 2025-10-18 11:47:50 UTC
Description of problem:

Manual man.7.gz packaged in wrong package

---

How reproducible:

$ sudo mandb -c
Processing manual pages under /usr/share/man...
[...]
mandb: can't resolve man7/groff_man.7
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man7/man.man-pages.7.gz: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
mandb: can't resolve man7/groff_man.7
mandb: warning: /usr/share/man/man7/man.7.gz: bad symlink or ROFF `.so' request
[...]

$ man 7 man
man: can't resolve man7/groff_man.7
No manual entry for man in section 7

---

Context

 None of the packages groff and man-pages-ja-20231115 that are informed by 'dnf provides *groff_man.7.gz' as providing the resource is installed.

$ man groff_man
No manual entry for groff_man

$ file -b /usr/share/man/man7/man.7.gz
symbolic link to /etc/alternatives/man.7.gz

 Extract of man-page MAN(1)
"7  Miscellaneous  [...] man(7), groff(7), man-pages(7)"

$ gzip -dc /usr/share/man/man7/man.7.gz
.so man7/groff_man.7

---

Conclusion

 /usr/share/man/man7/man.7.gz file

 It can be deduced that the
- package the file is part of is not correct.
- file is expected to be packaged in the groff and man-pages-ja-20231115 packages instead of the man-pages package.

Comment 1 Florian Weimer 2025-11-28 14:33:32 UTC
It's part of groff:

# rpm -qf /usr/share/man/man7/groff_man.7.gz
groff-1.23.0-10.fc43.x86_64

Let's ask  the groff maintainer if we can move this manual page into groff-base. Would this be a possible way forward?

Comment 2 Nikola Forró 2025-11-28 15:49:19 UTC
The man page is part of both man-pages and mandoc, hence the alternatives:

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/man-pages/blob/rawhide/f/man-pages.spec#_96
https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/mandoc/blob/rawhide/f/mandoc.spec#_91

I can see that man-pages upstream has replaced its content with a link to groff_man.7, which is a bit unfortunate.
I guess moving groff_man.7 to groff-base and making it a proper alternative for man.7 is the way to go, with man.7 being removed from man-pages at the same time.

Comment 3 Florian Weimer 2025-11-28 16:19:34 UTC
(In reply to Nikola Forró from comment #2)
> The man page is part of both man-pages and mandoc, hence the alternatives:
> 
> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/man-pages/blob/rawhide/f/man-pages.
> spec#_96
> https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/mandoc/blob/rawhide/f/mandoc.spec#_91
> 
> I can see that man-pages upstream has replaced its content with a link to
> groff_man.7, which is a bit unfortunate.
> I guess moving groff_man.7 to groff-base and making it a proper alternative
> for man.7 is the way to go, with man.7 being removed from man-pages at the
> same time.

I think this means that we can already delete /usr/share/man/man7/man.7.gz from man-pages today because it's mostly broken as-is?

Comment 4 Nikola Forró 2025-11-28 16:41:50 UTC
(In reply to Florian Weimer from comment #3)
> I think this means that we can already delete /usr/share/man/man7/man.7.gz
> from man-pages today because it's mostly broken as-is?

Yes, I think so.

Comment 5 Florian Weimer 2026-06-24 17:58:17 UTC
I believe I completed the man-pages part of this. I needed to versions. Only man-pages-6.13-5.fc45 removes the alternative on updates.

I believe you need to add

Conflicts: man-pages-6.13-5

to groff-base once you start installing %{_mandir}/man7/man.7.gz.


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