4 ms·

this works great on systems where programs are largely installed via package manager, but in plenty of environments is an unreasonable expectation. There's many

this works great on systems where programs are largely installed via package manager, but in plenty of environments is an unreasonable expectation. There's many many times I've gotten "no manual entry for $program" but there's extensive online help available in the program itself. Expecting there to be a safe invokation for "how do I use this damn thing" is 100% fair.

blueflow 2y ago
> Expecting there to be a safe invokation for "how do I use this damn thing" is 100% fair. Are you on debian? Do an `/usr/sbin/e2scrub_all --help`.
- danudey 2y ago
  Okay. $ e2scrub_all --help e2scrub_all must be run as root $ sudo e2scrub_all --help [sudo] password for dan: /usr/sbin/e2scrub_all: illegal option -- - Usage: /usr/sbin/e2scrub_all [OPTIONS] -n: Show what commands e2scrub_all would execute. -r: Remove e2scrub snapshots. -A: Scrub all ext[234] filesystems even if not mounted. -V: Print version information and exit. (Checking for being root before checking for --help is also frustrating)
  - blueflow 2y ago
    `man e2scrub_all` works without root :P
    - tenacious_tuna 2y ago
      Ansible's recommended install path is as a python pip package, which doesn't add manual pages. It's expected that to access the online documentation for ansible you fire off a ton of `ansible help topic` commands. `ipa`, the active-directory adjacent system published by IBM, also expects you to make heavy use of the `--help topic` pattern. When manual pages exist they're wonderful and lovely. It's a good standard, and my favorite is when the online help system of a given script or installed package (e.g. via pip) emulates man--but there aren't always man pages that's the entire point of my complaint here. It's unreliable in many contexts, but you do always have access to the command itself.
      - blueflow 2y ago
        That is because Ansible documentation is generally poor. Ansible is one of the projects which i use every day and where the (online!) documentation rarely answers the questions i have. This forces me to fall back into a try & error that takes 10 times longer.

blueflow 2y ago

> Expecting there to be a safe invokation for "how do I use this damn thing" is 100% fair. Are you on debian? Do an `/usr/sbin/e2scrub_all --help`.

danudey 2y ago
Okay. $ e2scrub_all --help e2scrub_all must be run as root $ sudo e2scrub_all --help [sudo] password for dan: /usr/sbin/e2scrub_all: illegal option -- - Usage: /usr/sbin/e2scrub_all [OPTIONS] -n: Show what commands e2scrub_all would execute. -r: Remove e2scrub snapshots. -A: Scrub all ext[234] filesystems even if not mounted. -V: Print version information and exit. (Checking for being root before checking for --help is also frustrating)
- blueflow 2y ago
  `man e2scrub_all` works without root :P
  - tenacious_tuna 2y ago
    Ansible's recommended install path is as a python pip package, which doesn't add manual pages. It's expected that to access the online documentation for ansible you fire off a ton of `ansible help topic` commands. `ipa`, the active-directory adjacent system published by IBM, also expects you to make heavy use of the `--help topic` pattern. When manual pages exist they're wonderful and lovely. It's a good standard, and my favorite is when the online help system of a given script or installed package (e.g. via pip) emulates man--but there aren't always man pages that's the entire point of my complaint here. It's unreliable in many contexts, but you do always have access to the command itself.
    - blueflow 2y ago
      That is because Ansible documentation is generally poor. Ansible is one of the projects which i use every day and where the (online!) documentation rarely answers the questions i have. This forces me to fall back into a try & error that takes 10 times longer.