From 83b917a960d1d637f0ad36ab709adba4dd69f8f8 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: LoveIsGrief Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2022 15:05:04 +0100 Subject: nixos/manpages: Explain -I option and how to build manpages When running nixos-rebuild -I, the man page just said "-I path" which could be interpreted as "just a path to nixpkgs", which in fact it actually has the same meaning as NIX_PATH. This is now made clear in the manual, so that when grepping "-I" and "NIX_PATH" one quickly finds the format of the option. I don't know how to link to the "nix manual" as stated in the docbook, so I left that as it is. Additionally, it wasn't clear to me how to actually build the man pages and view the changes I made. That's now in the contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md. --- .../manual/contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md | 24 +++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) (limited to 'nixos/doc/manual/contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md') diff --git a/nixos/doc/manual/contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md b/nixos/doc/manual/contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md index 26813d1042d69..557599809222a 100644 --- a/nixos/doc/manual/contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md +++ b/nixos/doc/manual/contributing-to-this-manual.chapter.md @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@ # Contributing to this manual {#chap-contributing} -The DocBook and CommonMark sources of NixOS' manual are in the [nixos/doc/manual](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/nixos/doc/manual) subdirectory of the [Nixpkgs](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs) repository. +The [DocBook] and CommonMark sources of the NixOS manual are in the [nixos/doc/manual](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/tree/master/nixos/doc/manual) subdirectory of the [Nixpkgs](https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs) repository. You can quickly check your edits with the following: @@ -11,3 +11,25 @@ $ nix-build nixos/release.nix -A manual.x86_64-linux ``` If the build succeeds, the manual will be in `./result/share/doc/nixos/index.html`. + +**Contributing to the man pages** + +The man pages are written in [DocBook] which is XML. + +To see what your edits look like: + +```ShellSession +$ cd /path/to/nixpkgs +$ nix-build nixos/release.nix -A manpages.x86_64-linux +``` + +You can then read the man page you edited by running + +```ShellSession +$ man --manpath=result/share/man nixos-rebuild # Replace nixos-rebuild with the command whose manual you edited +``` + +If you're on a different architecture that's supported by NixOS (check nixos/release.nix) then replace `x86_64-linux` with the architecture. +`nix-build` will complain otherwise, but should also tell you which architecture you have + the supported ones. + +[DocBook]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DocBook -- cgit 1.4.1