As reported by Randy, running make htmldocs on a machine
without textlive now produce warnings:

    $ make O=DOCS htmldocs
    ../Documentation/Makefile:70: warning: overriding recipe for target 'pdfdocs'
    ../Documentation/Makefile:61: warning: ignoring old recipe for target 'pdfdocs'

That's because the code has now two definitions for pdfdocs in
case $PDFLATEX command is not found. With the new script, such
special case is not needed anymore, as the script checks it.

Drop the special case. Even after dropping it, on a machine
without LaTeX, it will still produce an error as expected,
as running:

    $ ./tools/docs/sphinx-build-wrapper pdfdocs
    Error: pdflatex or latexmk required for PDF generation

does the check. After applying the patch we have:

    $ make SPHINXDIRS=peci htmldocs
    Using alabaster theme
    Using Python kernel-doc

    $ make SPHINXDIRS=peci pdfdocs
    Error: pdflatex or latexmk required for PDF generation
    make[2]: *** [Documentation/Makefile:64: pdfdocs] Error 1
    make[1]: *** [/root/Makefile:1808: pdfdocs] Error 2
    make: *** [Makefile:248: __sub-make] Error 2

Which is the expected behavior.

Reported-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-doc/e7c29532-71de-496b-a89f-743cef28736e@infradead.org/
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@kernel.org>
---
 Documentation/Makefile | 13 ++++---------
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/Makefile b/Documentation/Makefile
index c60db1038c9c..f764604fa1ac 100644
--- a/Documentation/Makefile
+++ b/Documentation/Makefile
@@ -66,20 +66,15 @@ htmldocs mandocs infodocs texinfodocs latexdocs epubdocs xmldocs pdfdocs linkche
 		--builddir="$(BUILDDIR)" --deny-vf=$(FONTS_CONF_DENY_VF) \
 		--theme=$(DOCS_THEME) --css=$(DOCS_CSS) --paper=$(PAPER)
 
-# Special handling for pdfdocs
-ifneq ($(shell which $(PDFLATEX) >/dev/null 2>&1; echo $$?),0)
-pdfdocs:
-	$(warning The '$(PDFLATEX)' command was not found. Make sure you have it installed and in PATH to produce PDF output.)
-	@echo "  SKIP    Sphinx $@ target."
-endif
 
-htmldocs-redirects: $(srctree)/Documentation/.renames.txt
-	@tools/docs/gen-redirects.py --output $(BUILDDIR) < $<
-endif # HAVE_SPHINX
+endif
 
 # The following targets are independent of HAVE_SPHINX, and the rules should
 # work or silently pass without Sphinx.
 
+htmldocs-redirects: $(srctree)/Documentation/.renames.txt
+	@tools/docs/gen-redirects.py --output $(BUILDDIR) < $<
+
 refcheckdocs:
 	$(Q)cd $(srctree);scripts/documentation-file-ref-check
 
-- 
2.51.0

On 9/29/25 1:53 AM, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> As reported by Randy, running make htmldocs on a machine
> without textlive now produce warnings:
> 
>     $ make O=DOCS htmldocs
>     ../Documentation/Makefile:70: warning: overriding recipe for target 'pdfdocs'
>     ../Documentation/Makefile:61: warning: ignoring old recipe for target 'pdfdocs'
> 
> That's because the code has now two definitions for pdfdocs in
> case $PDFLATEX command is not found. With the new script, such
> special case is not needed anymore, as the script checks it.
> 
> Drop the special case. Even after dropping it, on a machine
> without LaTeX, it will still produce an error as expected,
> as running:
> 
>     $ ./tools/docs/sphinx-build-wrapper pdfdocs
>     Error: pdflatex or latexmk required for PDF generation
> 
> does the check. After applying the patch we have:
> 
>     $ make SPHINXDIRS=peci htmldocs
>     Using alabaster theme
>     Using Python kernel-doc
> 
>     $ make SPHINXDIRS=peci pdfdocs
>     Error: pdflatex or latexmk required for PDF generation
>     make[2]: *** [Documentation/Makefile:64: pdfdocs] Error 1
>     make[1]: *** [/root/Makefile:1808: pdfdocs] Error 2
>     make: *** [Makefile:248: __sub-make] Error 2
> 
> Which is the expected behavior.
> 
> Reported-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-doc/e7c29532-71de-496b-a89f-743cef28736e@infradead.org/

Maybe Closes: ?  Anyway:

Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Tested-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>

Thanks.

> Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@kernel.org>
> ---
>  Documentation/Makefile | 13 ++++---------
>  1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 9 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/Makefile b/Documentation/Makefile
> index c60db1038c9c..f764604fa1ac 100644
> --- a/Documentation/Makefile
> +++ b/Documentation/Makefile
> @@ -66,20 +66,15 @@ htmldocs mandocs infodocs texinfodocs latexdocs epubdocs xmldocs pdfdocs linkche
>  		--builddir="$(BUILDDIR)" --deny-vf=$(FONTS_CONF_DENY_VF) \
>  		--theme=$(DOCS_THEME) --css=$(DOCS_CSS) --paper=$(PAPER)
>  
> -# Special handling for pdfdocs
> -ifneq ($(shell which $(PDFLATEX) >/dev/null 2>&1; echo $$?),0)
> -pdfdocs:
> -	$(warning The '$(PDFLATEX)' command was not found. Make sure you have it installed and in PATH to produce PDF output.)
> -	@echo "  SKIP    Sphinx $@ target."
> -endif
>  
> -htmldocs-redirects: $(srctree)/Documentation/.renames.txt
> -	@tools/docs/gen-redirects.py --output $(BUILDDIR) < $<
> -endif # HAVE_SPHINX
> +endif
>  
>  # The following targets are independent of HAVE_SPHINX, and the rules should
>  # work or silently pass without Sphinx.
>  
> +htmldocs-redirects: $(srctree)/Documentation/.renames.txt
> +	@tools/docs/gen-redirects.py --output $(BUILDDIR) < $<
> +
>  refcheckdocs:
>  	$(Q)cd $(srctree);scripts/documentation-file-ref-check
>  
-- 
~Randy