Re: Short installation guide for Arch Linux users.

"G. Branden Robinson" <[email protected]> Tue, 10 Feb 2026 11:34:37 -0600
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.printing.groff.general
Message-ID	<20260210173437.maxdy2gq3qhiarem@illithid>
At 2026-02-10T15:17:19+0100, Morten Bo Johansen wrote:
> Please find pasted in below a short guide I have made for installing
> Groff on an Arch Linux system.  It deals with installing the URW fonts
> and also getting the right packages installed for producing the
> documentation files.

Good stuff!  Thanks, Morten!

I don't know if it's worth clarifying for a brief "how-to"-style
document like this, but just so people understand: groff generates two
kinds of documentation: documents it builds using itself, and its
Texinfo manual, which is made using Texinfo, and, for typeset versions,
TeX as well.  I'll return to this point below.

> After a fresh installation of an Arch system on my computer a couple
> of days ago, I was faced with the problem of getting the URW fonts as
> well as guessing what packages were needed for producing the
> documentation files and so I thought that including the instructions
> below might be helpful to other Arch users.  If there is any interest
> in including it in one of the INSTALL.* files,

Yes.  "INSTALL" is a generic file that gnulib provides as an overview of
the GNU build system.  "INSTALL.extra" is the groff-specific supplement,
and it documents the matter of URW fonts.

https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/INSTALL.extra?h=1.24.0.rc3#n142

> I think that maybe INSTALL.REPO file might be pertinent?

That file is aimed at people seeking to build from a Git checkout/
working copy (which I observe is the procedure you document below).  It
incorporates "INSTALL.extra" by reference.

https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/INSTALL.REPO?h=1.24.0.rc3#n18

> Or perhaps the file MORE.STUFF?

That's not a good place, because it deals with stuff that (roughly)
builds on top of groff, rather than stuff that groff itself builds upon.

> Other Arch users here might please try out the instructions to
> ascertain their correctness.

Yes, please!

>    						###### Install Groff from source on Arch Linux ######
>    
>    # First, install some needed packages (they may already be installed).
>    # texlive-latexextra pulls in the needed dependencies for creating
>    # documentation files
>    
>        pacman -S base-devel git texlive-latexextra
>    
>    # Get a tool to interact with the Arch User Repository (AUR), yay is good.
>    
>        git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
>    
>    # Create and install the yay package.
>    
>        cd yay
>        makepkg -si
>    
>    # Install the gsfonts-type1 package from the AUR. It contains the 35 urw font
>    # metrics files which are installed in /usr/share/fonts/Type1/
>    
>        yay -S gsfonts-type1
>    
>    # In the groff source directory, run configure. The "--with-urw-fonts-dir= .."
>    # argument is still needed.
>    
>       ./configure --with-urw-fonts-dir=/usr/share/fonts/Type1/

I _was_ going to say that this should no longer be true as of
1.24.0.rc3, because there was a bug (reported by Alexis H.) that has
since been fixed...

_but_, this _exact_ directory name is not in our Autoconf macro
`GROFF_URW_FONTS_CHECK`.  Is that really the directory into which Arch
installs these fonts?

Here's the search path:

https://cgit.git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/groff.git/tree/m4/groff.m4?h=1.24.0.rc3#n340

Please double-check this.  I'm happy to add yet another directory to the
search path (and, as noted in the foregoing file, update "Foundry.in" as
well), but I want to be sure.

>    
>    # Compile and install
>    
>       make
>       make install

You might add "make install-doc".  That installs the typeset and HTML
versions of groff's Texinfo manual.  GNU Automake policy or idiom
mandates that these be handled by a separate target, and not "install";
I don't know why.

Thanks again for testing out a documenting a working installation
procedure in the Arch Linux environment.

I feel compelled to sign off with a joke.

Regards,
Branden (i dont use Arch, btw)
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