linaro-pkg team mailing list archive

[Dave Martin <dave.martin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

PAGER is for customisation.  A package which might not work if PAGER is
not set is a broken package.

However, the proposed change (http://git.linaro.org/gitweb?p=people/ynk
/linux-linaro-
tracking.git;a=commit;h=49561d58a14351d136518f25bd686f9a6ca41b69) has
some problems.  In particular, it will mess up PATH in the environment,
because strtok() causes the string it is used on to be modified.  Since
perf runs other subprocesses, this may lead to problems.

Why don't we just use /usr/bin/pager as the default?  This is the whole
point of the Debian alternatives system.

So:

If PAGER is set, try use its value.  Don't bother to search: it's up to
the user to specify sensible preferences.

Otherwise, if /usr/bin/pager exists, use that.

Otherwise, fall back to the legacy behaviour (i.e., try to run "less").
This should work just fine for the non-Debian folks.

Cheers
---Dave

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Linaro
Maintainers, which is the registrant for Linaro Linux.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/833101

Title:
  perf uses less at the default pager, but the linux-tools packages have
  no dependency for it

Status in Linaro Ubuntu Evaluation Builds:
  Fix Released
Status in Linaro Linux:
  New
Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
  In Progress
Status in “linux-linaro” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  $ perf list
  sh: less: not found

  This only affects minimal installs which don't have less installed.

  Observed in:
   * linux-tools-2.6.38-11 (2.6.38-11.48) in the Ubuntu archive, running under natty (11.04)
   * linux-linaro-tools-3.0.0-1004 (3.0.0-1004.5~ppa~natty) from the linaro overlay PPA, from the 11.08 release.

  The issue probably affects all packages containing the perf tool.

  This could be fixed:

  a) in linux (preferably upstream), by changing perf's default pager to more if less is absent
  b) in debian/ubuntu, by changing perf's default pager to /usr/bin/pager or more
  c) in debian/ubuntu by allowing util-linux to provide /usr/bin/less as an alternative using more.
  d) in linux-meta by adding Depends: less (if believed to be acceptable)

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