This is just wrong. Why was this changed in Linux-land, I have no idea.
Use 'man ls' or any other man command.
Hit space a few times to get down into the document.
Now try to go back. 'b' or '^u' do not work, because it's a pipe, not man's built-in pager.
This is a HUGE problem when trying to find a specific command option. For instance, do 'man man', then type '/pager' to search for the word 'pager'. Great, it shows you it, but it's buried in text. So you'd like to page up to see the context for it. No dice! Can't backscroll!
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Update - Apparently this is an issue with the default '/bin/more' program installed with Debian Sarge. apt-get install less replaced /bin/more with 'less', which does backscrolling properly.
Um...
Yeah, what you've updated to.
'more' has never, in the past... 30? years? had backscrolling.
But the 'tar' has a 'z' option built in, and numerous other updates. It's an inconsistency issue that grates on me. It's fixed now, but gr. :)