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How is it that FreeBSD has such great documentation[1], now this while Linux is stuck with random wikis and blogposts, usually out-of-date? [1] https://www.fre

How is it that FreeBSD has such great documentation[1], now this while Linux is stuck with random wikis and blogposts, usually out-of-date? [1] https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/ https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/

dijit 13y ago
Smaller community, more central management. Linux is seen as a programming platform a lot more than freeBSD. man pages work wonderfully though.
- X-Istence 13y ago
  The man pages that come with FreeBSD are absolutely fantastic and top notch, more so than most of the man pages I have found with Ubuntu for example. I don't see how Linux being seen as a programming platform makes much if a difference. FreeBSD has a pretty large community as well, but the core community that puts together the OS seems to take much more pride in their work and having it be fully documented than any other open source organisation.
  - teddyh 13y ago
    The man pages of BSD are the official documentation. The man pages of, for instance, GNU LibC are not the official documentation. This is: https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/ https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/
    - thirdsight 13y ago
      Which is the problem with Linux as a whole for me. WiFi configuration is a particular problem where everything has awful documentation so when you need to set up your WiFi without NetworkManager or some other behemoth, much eye poking and googling on other devices is required. FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD: man ifconfig (and dmesg) As a rule, and this happened to me more than once, you might need to configure your network connection without the aid of Google and online documentation. Either that or you're stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere with no WiFi and no 3G and you want to read the docs.
      - teddyh 13y ago
        The official documentation is available on the link I gave, but it should also be available in the Info format on your local drive. I find it much easier to search Info documents for something than grepping compressed man pages.
        thirdsight 13y ago
        Info is horrible. Case in point: Awk manpage: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=awk http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=awk Gawk info (in html): http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html Both fully describe the capabilities of the software without resorting to compressing it. Elegance in simplicity.
        teddyh 13y ago
        I disagree; In general, I prefer Info. I would explain why, but that would be repeating myself; I instead refer to my previous post on this very topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6656656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6656656
        thirdsight 13y ago
        I think it's funny that someone else picked exactly the same example however I respect your opinion on the subject.
- akadien 13y ago
  I develop primarily on FreeBSD (80% C, 20% nodejs) and test for compliance on Centos Linux. My experience is that code written and tested on FreeBSD has so far fewer bugs this way. Package management is more intuitive, too.
  - eonil 13y ago
    Yeah, port system is fantastic. It takes longer, but just works. The whole system is designed to be robust, there's no broken shit if it's done successfully. *It reports error on failure at least. Linux package managers are fast, but usually broken silently in some ways - which are critical on robustness - and I always discover myself manually doing what port system does. CentOS packages are relatively more robust, but it's too outdated, and installing new packages nothing different from any other Linux distros.
    - Nux 13y ago
      My experience - and one of the main reasons I switched from BSD to Linux is that the ports sytem is a broken pile of stuff. Yum on CentOS is a joy to work with in comparison. I see the FreeBSD devs have finally started to see the light with the introduction of Pkgng.
      - rgbrenner 13y ago
        Ports broken? Usually see this complaint when the user has an up to date ports tree, but out of date freebsd install.. Ports doesn't have branches/releases.. So if your fbsd version is no longer supported, you'll start seeing broken ports. Pkgng is not a replacement for ports.. It's a replacement for the old pkg manager (pkg_*)
      - icantthinkofone 13y ago
        I'll repeat what the other guy said. Ports broken?! Not in my 10 years of using it.
        thirdsight 13y ago
justincormack 13y ago
Linux distros have to do that sort of documentation as there is no standard. There is only really one freebsd distro. Also the change rate is lower.
- tachion 13y ago
  To certain degree - we've also FreeNAS, PC-BSD and lots of others, listed in details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSD_operating_systems#FreeBSD-based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSD_operating_systems#F...
  - justincormack 13y ago
    Thats true, but they are still much closer than Linux distros.
    - tachion 13y ago
      Also to certain degree: see Debian - Ubuntu, RHEL - CentOS and so on ;)
vacri 13y ago
FreeBSD is a 'distribution' and Linux is a 'kernel', which in the context you're discussing is an important distinction. Pick a same-level entity to compare - Fedora? Ubuntu? Arch? Not saying that the documentation is as good, just that the question is apples vs oranges.
- mhurron 13y ago
  In the context it is clear that they used Linux in place of a 'Linux Distribution.' No one was unclear about this. And the documentation of all Linux distros suck compared to FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Including Arch's.
  - UNIXgod 13y ago
    They have the gnu info pages which comes with emacs. Man pages is a dying artform. With all the github projects out there they may have, if your lucky, a help dialog switch but no proper man page for their projects.
    - darklajid 13y ago
      That is missing the point somewhat. The thread starter specifically linked to the FreeBSD handbook. Manual isn't [limited to] man pages here.
RexRollman 13y ago
I think OpenBSD and Arch has really good documentation too.

dijit 13y ago

Smaller community, more central management. Linux is seen as a programming platform a lot more than freeBSD. man pages work wonderfully though.

X-Istence 13y ago
The man pages that come with FreeBSD are absolutely fantastic and top notch, more so than most of the man pages I have found with Ubuntu for example. I don't see how Linux being seen as a programming platform makes much if a difference. FreeBSD has a pretty large community as well, but the core community that puts together the OS seems to take much more pride in their work and having it be fully documented than any other open source organisation.
- teddyh 13y ago
  The man pages of BSD are the official documentation. The man pages of, for instance, GNU LibC are not the official documentation. This is: https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/ https://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/
  - thirdsight 13y ago
    Which is the problem with Linux as a whole for me. WiFi configuration is a particular problem where everything has awful documentation so when you need to set up your WiFi without NetworkManager or some other behemoth, much eye poking and googling on other devices is required. FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD: man ifconfig (and dmesg) As a rule, and this happened to me more than once, you might need to configure your network connection without the aid of Google and online documentation. Either that or you're stuck on a train in the middle of nowhere with no WiFi and no 3G and you want to read the docs.
    - teddyh 13y ago
      The official documentation is available on the link I gave, but it should also be available in the Info format on your local drive. I find it much easier to search Info documents for something than grepping compressed man pages.
      - thirdsight 13y ago
        Info is horrible. Case in point: Awk manpage: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=awk http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=awk Gawk info (in html): http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html Both fully describe the capabilities of the software without resorting to compressing it. Elegance in simplicity.
        teddyh 13y ago
        I disagree; In general, I prefer Info. I would explain why, but that would be repeating myself; I instead refer to my previous post on this very topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6656656 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6656656
        thirdsight 13y ago
        I think it's funny that someone else picked exactly the same example however I respect your opinion on the subject.
akadien 13y ago
I develop primarily on FreeBSD (80% C, 20% nodejs) and test for compliance on Centos Linux. My experience is that code written and tested on FreeBSD has so far fewer bugs this way. Package management is more intuitive, too.
- eonil 13y ago
  Yeah, port system is fantastic. It takes longer, but just works. The whole system is designed to be robust, there's no broken shit if it's done successfully. *It reports error on failure at least. Linux package managers are fast, but usually broken silently in some ways - which are critical on robustness - and I always discover myself manually doing what port system does. CentOS packages are relatively more robust, but it's too outdated, and installing new packages nothing different from any other Linux distros.
  - Nux 13y ago
    My experience - and one of the main reasons I switched from BSD to Linux is that the ports sytem is a broken pile of stuff. Yum on CentOS is a joy to work with in comparison. I see the FreeBSD devs have finally started to see the light with the introduction of Pkgng.
    - rgbrenner 13y ago
      Ports broken? Usually see this complaint when the user has an up to date ports tree, but out of date freebsd install.. Ports doesn't have branches/releases.. So if your fbsd version is no longer supported, you'll start seeing broken ports. Pkgng is not a replacement for ports.. It's a replacement for the old pkg manager (pkg_*)
    - icantthinkofone 13y ago
      I'll repeat what the other guy said. Ports broken?! Not in my 10 years of using it.
      - thirdsight 13y ago

justincormack 13y ago

Linux distros have to do that sort of documentation as there is no standard. There is only really one freebsd distro. Also the change rate is lower.

tachion 13y ago
To certain degree - we've also FreeNAS, PC-BSD and lots of others, listed in details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSD_operating_systems#FreeBSD-based http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSD_operating_systems#F...
- justincormack 13y ago
  Thats true, but they are still much closer than Linux distros.
  - tachion 13y ago
    Also to certain degree: see Debian - Ubuntu, RHEL - CentOS and so on ;)

vacri 13y ago

FreeBSD is a 'distribution' and Linux is a 'kernel', which in the context you're discussing is an important distinction. Pick a same-level entity to compare - Fedora? Ubuntu? Arch? Not saying that the documentation is as good, just that the question is apples vs oranges.

mhurron 13y ago
In the context it is clear that they used Linux in place of a 'Linux Distribution.' No one was unclear about this. And the documentation of all Linux distros suck compared to FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Including Arch's.
- UNIXgod 13y ago
  They have the gnu info pages which comes with emacs. Man pages is a dying artform. With all the github projects out there they may have, if your lucky, a help dialog switch but no proper man page for their projects.
  - darklajid 13y ago
    That is missing the point somewhat. The thread starter specifically linked to the FreeBSD handbook. Manual isn't [limited to] man pages here.

RexRollman 13y ago

I think OpenBSD and Arch has really good documentation too.