Re: Running makemandb on every boot

[Marc Balmer <marc%msys.ch@localhost>]

Am 19.05.2014 um 01:31 schrieb David Brownlee <abs%absd.org@localhost>:

> Currently the system runs 'makemandb -Q' in the background on every boot. 
> This updates the apropos database (for 'man -k').
> 
> On an system with an existing man database this will stat(2) every manpage 
> and update /var/db/man.db (an around 18MB sqlite database on a new amd64 
> system, maybe around 40MB on the same system with a reasonable selection of 
> packages)
> 
> On a modern system rich in disk, memory and CPU this is unnoticeable. On a 
> slower system (mac68k, vax, embedded 486), this renders the system 
> effectively unusable for some time.
> 
> Given that makemandb is run nightly and weekly by cron anyway, it would 
> probably be best for those systems to not have makemandb run on boot.
> 
> My first thought would be to allow setting it in sysinst, with a per port - 
> default on for i386, amd64, modern (arm, powerpc, mips), off for others.
> 
> What do people think?
> 

What say does make sense to me.  I run several small machines and I also suffer 
from this effect.  Maybe the behaviour would better be defined in /etc/rc.conf 
(with sensible per-port default values)?

- mb