#1104610 man-db: no longer works by default (rendering broken in more, effectively hard-depends on less for functional output)

Package:
man-db
Source:
man-db
Description:
tools for reading manual pages
Submitter:
наб
Date:
2025-05-02 21:48:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1104610#5
Date:
2025-05-02 21:44:35 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

If you install man-db in a minbase/buildd chroot,
it no longer (vs bookworm 2.11.2-2) works good
(more breaks the lines before they should be broken?).

I'm attaching a screenshot from "man man" on sid and bookworm
(with pager=more and less not installed),
and the output from
  PAGER='/bin/sh -c "cat >bookworm.1"' man --debug man 2>bookworm.2

I can reproduce this behaviour with sid/bookworm more
(more bookworm.1 looks ok, more sid.1 is broken).
less -R renders both .1s correctly.

The output on sid is effectively unusable, and requires less.
(man(1) is quite forgiving here;
 the pages I triggered this with originally are basically complete hash).

I'm not discounting the possibility that this is a more line-width-accounting bug, but. idk.

Best,