Just a thought, but maybe adding an entry to /etc/manpath.config would
  be more distribution agnostic?

  Appending this should do the trick:

  MANDATORY_MANPATH            /usr/local/coda/share/man

That probably still needs to be prefixed by "On Linux"; there is no
/etc/manpath.config on NetBSD.  There is /etc/man.conf.
(I set MANPATH, personally).

-- 
    Greg Troxel <gdt_at_ir.bbn.com>