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info make opened same as man make. I've downloaded make.info.tar.gz file from https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/, then:

sudo cp ~/Downloads/make.info.tar.gz /usr/share/info/

sudo install-info /usr/share/info/make.info.tar.gz /usr/share/info/dir

I got info (no pun intended) from https://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/manual/texinfo/texinfo.html#Installing-an-Info-File

Now there is a new entry when I do info:

  • Make: (make). Remake files automatically.

But when I select it I get Cannot find node ''. info make still displays man page, not Info document page. What could be the problem?

Martian2020
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2 Answers2

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The file you downloaded is an archive, you need to extract its contents:

sudo tar -C /usr/share/info -xof make.info.tar.gz &&
  sudo install-info /usr/share/info/make.info /usr/share/info/dir

Renaming it as you did happens to work because there’s a single file in the archive, and the tar header ends up mostly ignored by info; but zless /usr/share/info/make.info.gz should show you noise at the top of the page.

Stéphane Chazelas
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Stephen Kitt
  • 434,908
  • Indeed zless had shown sed.info.gz and mine differently. I still wonder why gnu.org does post with tar for one file archive. As the rest in /usr/share/info/ are .gz I think I'm repacking after extracting. – Martian2020 Nov 03 '23 at 13:26
  • The tarball is generated by gendocs.sh; building info docs can result in multiple files, so the info output is designed around that. – Stephen Kitt Nov 03 '23 at 13:30
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I've noted other files in /usr/share/info/ are named e.g. sed.info.gz. Renaming make.info.tar.gz to make.info.gz and rerunning below solved the problem

sudo install-info /usr/share/info/make.info.gz /usr/share/info/dir

I wonder why gnu.org has so named files for download. "Info document (268K bytes gzipped tar file)." Maybe on another systems files are named tar.gz? I'm on Linux Mint 21 based.

Martian2020
  • 1,167