Re: [Groff] Choosing a portability target

[Meg McRoberts]

One small thought about man page compatibility...  We have a fundamental
problem between Linux and most Unix systems because of the section-naming
differences.  I have never figured out a good way around that.  My current
job includes responsibility for a handful of man pages about applications
that run on Linux, Solaris, and Windows.  For Windows, I just run the text
into a PDF file and publish it.  And I don't have a good solution for what
to do about man pages for Linux and Solaris -- all the information may be
the same but file formats are section 5 on Linux and section 4 on Solaris;
administrative commands are section 8 on Linux and section 1M on Solaris.

As for the larger discussions, most of what I'm writing does not need any
fancy formatting.  I would love to know the basic set of codings I can use
that are pretty likely to work on any system.  I might some day decide to
use something that isn't so portable but I wouldn't accidentally do that.

meg