FreeBSD Documentation

H

hwagemann

Hi myztic,

thanks for writing this HowTo. Next time I want to write a HowTo for installing FreeBSD using desktop-installer, I'll compare with "normal" installation. Your HowTo gives me some hints.

If FreeBSD fits you, it won't be a big difference compared to GNU/Linux.

Better security, better stability, better code quality, but on top of it
you will run Xorg, Firefox, all your favourite programs, and pretty much all
of them will be aTheoreticalvailable through the ports system.
Click to expand...

Theoretically spoken you might be right here, but I've also made some experience with broken stuff under FreeBSD which works under GNU/Linux like Debian, Arch or siduction out of the box.
Some tools for ripping CDs based on qt4 are broken under FreeBSD. k3b, soundkonverter and other qt4 based applications crash, when trying to read an audio cd for ripping, compare with this thread:
https://forums.freebsd.org/posts/300441/

And refering to aspect of documentation: I don't want to start a flame war but IMO one of best documentated free Operating system is Arch Linux, FreeBSD documentation is "so la la" and DragonFlyBSD documentation is catastrophically outdated.

Apart from that some people here are very helpful and this compensates outdated documentation.

Kind regards,
Holger (working with GNU/Linux since 1998)
 
hwagemann said:
FreeBSD documentation is "so la la" and DragonFlyBSD documentation is catastrophically outdated.
Click to expand...

The FreeBSD and DragonflyBSD communities are very open with regard to users wishing to help improve their documentation. In the case of DragonflyBSD's pages, anyone can edit them, you don't even need permission. Just open an account on their page (which is a wiki) and start editing. This IMO is constructive.
 
Hello gofer_touch,

I don't want to insult communities of FreeBSD or DragonFlyBSD. I've promised to write a HowTo for using tool desktop-installer on FreeBSD, I've not forgotten it but need some more time for writing it.

But myztic compare with GNU/Linux here and sorry, everyone, who knows about Arch and its documentation, should IMO admit, that this documentation is very up-to-date, and this I cannot say about documentation of FreeBSD and DragonFlyBSD. And IMO writing documentation for beginners is not a job for beginners. German Arch wiki for example is written by Arch freaks, who are very familar with this operating system, not by Arch beginners comming from Ubuntu or Windows.

I've written:
FreeBSD documentation is "so la la"
Click to expand...
please don't misunderstand this, it does not mean bad_written_documentation, the chapter about pw in FreeBSD handbook for example is very good written, it refers to actuality of some parts of documentation. Let me explain: I've started with GNU/Linux since 1998, first with S.u.S.E then with Debian, in spring of this year I want to know to setup and administrate arch based systems for my needs on a desktop system. I've had to learn a lot of further stuff and had some questions and in most cases I could solve it with searching strings "Arch" + "question", first results of google gives me current documentation from german or english arch wiki and so on.

Since some weeks I deal with FreeBSD, and searching for k3b for example shows me stuff refering to FreeBSD 6, searching for kde in documentation of DragonFlyBSD gives me info for kde3(!), info for kde4 with note "outdated", pkg_radd is mentioned in this chapter, sorry, but this is water under the bridge. And beginners are not able to write current documentation because they are not familar with *BSD.

But I want to repeat: People of this forum are very helpful and so I don't want to give up to learn about FreeBSD.

Kind regards,
Holger
 
I have the same machine and was a Linux users for years before switching to FreeBSD, so I'll give some input from my end. I'll be critical, but no offense is intendend ;):
  • snd_hda is already hard-coded into the GENERIC kernel, so there's no need for the entry in /boot/loader.conf.
  • Wifi works fine and is configured during installation. No need for that info here.
  • It should go without saying that Linux-exclusive stuff like LUKS won't work on anything but Linux. Someone switching to FreeBSD should come in with the mindset that using FreeBSD will require learning FreeBSD tools. To be blunt: FreeBSD is not Linux.
    • If you need to share files between FreeBSD and Linux, I recommend formatting any shared partition/drive to EXT2. The FreeBSD kernel has good read-write support for it, so file transfers will be much faster than they would with EXT4 mounted via FUSE. In any case, you probably shouldn't rely on either to store vital information you need to access on a FreeBSD system.
    • Similarly, it may be possible to open and mount an LVM volume to retrieve files, but you shouldn't rely on it for storage at all.
  • ports-mgmt/portmaster and ports-mgmt/portupgrade are separate tools intended to serve the same funciton, so there's no need to have both installed at once. I can't see a reason for using portmaster to check for updates, while using portupgrade to actually perform updates. You upgrade a single port with portmaster by just installing the new version. Really, though, you ought to periodically upgrade all ports that have updates available, not just a single port here and there.
  • It's a bit curious that you specifically say this is a guide for notebooks, yet make no mention of notebook-centric features like suspend-to-RAM and power management.
  • You really, really ought to avoid duplicating any information that's already in the FreeBSD Handbook. All the necessary information to begin configuring the system and installing ports/packages is already there, and anyone who has trouble understanding the Handbook won't be able to decipher your shorthand anyway. New users should read the official guide, and ask for help here or on the mailing lists if they don't quite understand something.
The long and short of it is that, from my perspective, this "guide" reads like a list of things you personally happened to do while configuring your particular system. It doesn't really offer any guidance, for switching from Linux to FreeBSD, let alone how to configure FreeBSD for a notebook PC.
hwagemann said:
...one of best documentated free Operating system is Arch Linux, FreeBSD documentation is "so la la"...
Click to expand...

I have no idea what "so la la" means, but I've used Arch and its wiki for years, and I'm not sure what standard you're using to compare it to FreeBSD's documentation. Most of the information in the Arch Wiki has little-to-nothing to do with Arch itself, and will work on any Unix-like operating system. Arch isn't an operating system or distribution in the same sense as Debian or Fedora--Arch is just a set of repositories and package tools one can use to quickly build a GNU/Linux operating system piece-by-piece. The information on those tools in the Arch wiki is only an overview, much the same way that the comparable sections of the FreeBSD Handbook are just an overview, while the man pages are the comprehensive documentation. The man pages on, for example, pacman and pkg are both very well-done. But to say that the fact that the Arch wiki has a page on, say, Xfce while the FreeBSD Handbook does not, doesn't mean that Arch Linux is better-documented, because Xfce is not a part of either Arch Linux or FreeBSD, and configuring it on either OS is effectively the same.
 
Hello @ANOKNUSA,

ANOKNUSA said:
I have no idea what "so la la" means, but I've used Arch and its wiki for years, and I'm not sure what standard you're using to compare it to FreeBSD's documentation.
Click to expand...
Please read my further comment, it refers to actuality in some parts, not to quality.

And once again: People here are very helpful with competent hints, otherwise I would have given up learning about FreeBSD yet.

ANOKNUSA said:
Arch isn't an operating system or distribution in the same sense as Debian or Fedora--Arch is just a set of repositories and package tools one can use to quickly build a GNU/Linux operating system piece-by-piece.
Click to expand...
No, you describe here Linux from scratch. Arch has its own repos, binary packages with own modifications, testing and stable.

But to say that the fact that the Arch wiki has a page on, say, Xfce while the [/i]FreeBSD Handbook[/i] does not, doesn't mean that Arch Linux is better-documented, because Xfce is not a part of either Arch Linux or FreeBSD, and configuring it on either OS is effectively the same.
Click to expand...
I disagree: My favorite example is k3b.
Code: 
zypper install k3b
-> k3b is ready to use immediately
Code: 
pacman -S k3b
-> k3b is ready to use immediately
Code: 
apt-get install k3b
-> k3b is ready to use immediately
Code: 
pkg install k3b
-> have a lot of fun with modifying a lot of config files before k3b might be ready to use (k3b is broken on FreeBSD 10.2)
And this has_to_do with differences between *BSD and GNU/Linux.

myztic said:
I am so tired of this argument. I used Arch Linux and I often use the Arch Linux documentation, no matter what System I use.
But it really depends what kind of documentation you prefer. You praise the Arch Linux Wiki, I am talking about the FreeBSD Handbook.
That is a fundamental difference in my opinion. I prefer a handbook over a wiki.
Click to expand...

No, as a user I need documentation for answering questions, origin can be a handbook, a HowTo or a wiki ... And "praise", sorry, "like" is enough :)
If you've a question, searching with google, do you avoid helpful info, when it is part of a wiki? I prefer the kind of documentation, which helps me in a direct way to answer my questions and which does not waste my time.

myztic said:
It also says: 0.2 How FreeBSD might(!) be better than GNU/Linux ... why did I put the "!" there? Because it's subjective.
Click to expand...
You feel free to give your subjective opinion, and I feel free to give an answer without insulting intention. Where is the problem for you? Maybe you agree or you disagree with my comment. Apart from that: Every opinion transports a special content, and this content can based on facts or not, it can contradict itself in a semantic or formal way or not and so on. And if you formulate something about documentation which contradicts my experience then I feel free to comment this in an offical forum area. And if you think, I'm not right, you can discuss and give reasons for it. Maybe your subjective opinion can get status of intersubjectivity :) And a forum is a good place to find out that.

myztic said:
This is the senseless x vs y argument that costs time, effort and does not accomplish anything. And that we all are tired of encountering. I will not write anything regarding this specific discussion (as to which documentation is better) any more. Besides stating my opinion (which I have done by now) I don't want to engage in this any further.
Click to expand...
You've started with comparing, giving your opinion about and I've commented this in a friendly way, have thanked for your HowTo but have disagreed in one point, and I ask you again, what is wrong with that in an official forum area?

Kind regards,
Holger
 
So you ridicule the FreeBSD handbook, then go off into a tangent about how it's easier to find random Linux tutorials through Google, complain about not being able to find Linux-centric documentation on a third party Linux application and vaguely declare the handbook is "so la la" based on your limited experience? So.. Google is your justification... right. That's a fantastic, incoherent argument there.

hwagemann said:
No, you describe here Linux from scratch. Arch has its own repos, binary packages with own modifications, testing and stable.
Click to expand...

Regardless of the underlying Distros' "philosophy", it's all the same cobbled up pieces of disjointed, broken software. There's no fundamental difference between Ubuntu and Arch Linux. There is no concept of a base OS in the Linux world.
 
Beastie7 said:
So you ridicule the FreeBSD handbook, then go off into a tangent about how it's easier to find random Linux tutorials through Google, complain about not being able to find Linux-centric documentation on a third party Linux application and vaguely declare the handbook is "so la la" based on your limited experience? So.. Google is your justification... right. That's a fantastic, incoherent argument there.
Regardless of the underlying Distros' "philosophy", it's all the same cobbled up pieces of disjointed, broken software. There's no fundamental difference between Ubuntu and Arch Linux. There is no concept of a base OS in the Linux world.
Click to expand...
Beastie7, your comment is a nice example for hyperbolism. I could write google, duck-duck-go, bing or any other search machine. Once again in one sentense and with simpler words: It is difficult to find current documentation refering to some parts of FreeBSD. What is so difficult to understand this and why misinterpret this as a general attack against FreeBSD? Are we in play school here?

Every "stupid" Linux distribution gives me a working k3b, in FreeBSD 10.2 it is broken, so devs and maintainer of FreeBSD also put their pants on one leg at a time. And on this machine for example https://www.dkrz.de/Klimarechner-en/hpc?set_language=en also runs "stupid broken" linux stuff.

But I'll stopp now here, it makes no sense for me to discuss with fanatic people, because every try to explain things in detail will be misinterpret as an attack against the whole operating system or against person and in such a case further try of correction is wasting time.

Kind regards,
Holger
 
hwagemann said:
Beastie7, your comment is a nice example for hyperbolism. Every "stupid" Linux distribution gives me a working k3b, in FreeBSD 10.2 it is broken, so devs and maintainer of FreeBSD also put their pants on one leg at a time. And on this machine for example https://www.dkrz.de/Klimarechner-en/hpc?set_language=en also runs "stupid broken" linux stuff. But I'll stopp now here, it makes no sense for me to discuss with fanatic people, because every try to explain in detail is wasting time in such a case.

Kind regards,
Holger
Click to expand...

And that's some how FreeBSDs fault? So the burden of interoperability of GNU centric applications is on the FreeBSD community, rather than the developers themselves making said software cross-platform? Do you not see the contradiction there? By the way, it has nothing to do with OS implementation differences either. Such software exists that works very well on both GNU/Linux and FreeBSD.

If a port maintainer has to go through the hassle of putting up with non-agnostic software because of a self-centered community, usually the headache of working around that isn't worth it especially on a desktop app; resulting in non-complete ports. If you're so eager to complain about it; I suggest you either help with the port (by providing bug reports; given you aren't a developer) or do us a favor and stick with Linux.

hwagemann said:
It is a little bit difficult to find current documentation refering to some parts of FreeBSD.
Click to expand...

Third party apps aren't part of the FreeBSD base system, which is what the Handbook covers. Other than that, finding documentation isn't difficult. You have the Handbook, and man pages. It's that simple.

Your complaining is a good example of incompetent, dishonest laziness.
 
Beastie7, I would suggest following: Four weeks in nature without computer ... :)

I suggest you either help with the port
Click to expand...
If core functionality is broken, no bug report is needed. If ripping software does not rip and crash, and a maintainer does not notice that, do you think, further bug reports would change the situation?
or do us a favor and stick with Linux
Click to expand...
"Us"? Are you sure you speak here for people like wblock@, @talsman and other helpful non-fanatic people here? Are you sure you are a typical representative of whole FreeBSD communitiy? Would I've been confronted in the last weeks with some more people, who acts like you here, then I had leave this forum rapidly.

Kind regards,
Holger
 
Yeah, I will end it where I left off since the poster seems to be straying off into invalid tangents and dribble.

There should be a rule against unfounded FreeBSD bashing. Yeah? :p
 
cpm, a flame war was not my intention. I don't see any FreeBSD bashing but some GNU/Linux bashing and some malingnity. I'll avoid discussions with such people in the future.

Kind regards,
Holger
 
hwagemann said:
Since some weeks I deal with FreeBSD, and searching for k3b for example shows me stuff refering to FreeBSD 6
Click to expand...
We would like to have everything in our documentation up to date. Unfortunately, not all of the people who work on the documentation use every application, and most people who use the applications do not report or update the documentation. A bug report on outdated or incorrect sections is recommended, preferably with a patch that can be applied to update it.
 
hwagemann said:
And refering to aspect of documentation: I don't want to start a flame war but IMO one of best documentated free Operating system is Arch Linux, FreeBSD documentation is "so la la" and DragonFlyBSD documentation is catastrophically outdated.

Kind regards,
Holger (working with GNU/Linux since 1998)
Click to expand...

Are you serous? You call that third party howtos on Arch Linux website "the best documented free OS". Apparently you have never read serious man pages. I will concur that DragonFly handbook in particular leaves much to be desired but the core stuff
is good. However considering the size of the community (dozen or so developers) I think they are doing pretty darn good. HAMMER(5)/HAMMER(8), vkernel, BSD licensed TrueCrypt besides Linux LUKS, and dma beat the pants out of any "innovation" which came out of Linux kitchen (systemd, avaihi, PulseAudio, ALSA, SELinux, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4 fiascos come to mind) and many more vaporwares (BTRFS, Hurd are on the top of the list).

Forgive me but I have very hard time picturing you working with the Linux since 1998. Some of us work with UNIX since lates 80s and unfortunately with Linux since since 2000 due to the demise of Sun Microsystem. I personally consider myself a small part of mature and very competent Springdale Linux and former member of Scientific Linux community. I have never seen statements you made on their mailing lists. As soon as you started talking about EXT4 (which is not even used in Linux) and talking about LVM (DragonFly has it) without even hearing about geom or Geli FreeBSD native crypto disciplines it was clear to me that commenting your post line by line is the waist of time. By the way ZFS has built in volume menager :) You have to understand that this is a small community largely consisting of serious professionals and serious hobbyists. When you come here and try to brag us about best "Linux file system" XFS for example you have to expect that somebody actually used that thing on IRIX/SGI before it was ever ported to Linux.
 
wblock@ said:
We would like to have everything in our documentation up to date.
Click to expand...
Why are you apologetic? FreeBSD developers should take the note that shipping a software without updating man pages is a bug.
IMHO Handbook should be updated every 6 months just like OpenBSD FAQ and if the community is unable to do so it should be aggressively pruned when that becomes possible. People looking for howto to burn CD with K3b on FreeBSD should not be taken seriously.
 
Hello wblock@, Oko,

maybe it has to do with that english is not my father language, I want to start another try to explain, what I mean:
1. I don't want to ridicule handbook of FreeBSD. People who read carefully what I wrote, should notice that
2. My experience is, that finding current documentation around FreeBSD is some more difficult than finding current documentation around Arch Linux.
3. Knowing how to search stuff around free software my conclusion is, that some parts of documentation around FreeBSD are outdated.

Oko, you've written:
People looking for howto to burn CD with K3b on FreeBSD should not be taken seriously.
Click to expand...
Hmm, when also people who are familar with FreeBSD have given up to use k3b, then something is wrong with this piece of software on FreeBSD, can you agree with this? But what is wrong? Has it to do with setting up procedure, with broken stuff, with kind of documentation? I'm a beginner and cannot evaluate this in a proper way. Perhaps a professional can answer this :)

And sorry, saying that configuring stuff on FreeBSD is same as on GNU/Linux is not correct and people who are famillar with FreeBSD and with GNU/LInux and who use both systems know that, because this has to do with different designs.

And I'll ask you seriously: Where can you find anything in my explanations around this that:
- insults FreeBSD community
- spreading FUD against FreeBSD
- saying bad things against handbook of FreeBSD?

I've a new computer since four months and can do a lot of things with several Linux distributions on it, but I want to find out, if FreeBSD also could be a tool for this.
With clear words:
To do that tests, I've
- bought a Nivida graphic card -> because of FreeBSD (Haswell intel graphic is not well supported yet)
- bought a new ssd -> because of FreeBSD

Last days I've made some fotos, because I've planned to write a very detailed Howto for beginners who want to install FreeBSD as desktop system.

But when I'll be confronted with some more threads like here, then I lost interest to write such a Howto.

Such kinds of conversation is reason, why I don't register on german Arch forum. There are some very helpful non-fanatic people but there are also fanatic Arch users and this makes it not possible to discuss seriously about Arch. Somebody has started there a thread, he wanted to compare apt-get and pacman. The result was a flame war, a very aggressive acting moderator(!) and the person, who has started the thread has left Arch forum rapidly. The form of flame war was following:
- pacman is best package manager
- Debian is designed by fools
- package management of Debian is designed by fools
- users of Debian are fools
- if someone like Debian, he / she should stick with Debian but should keep one's trap shut

And assumed, my evaluation of documentation around FreeBSD is wrong, people can handle this in very different ways like:
1. you also can find very good documentation for x y z on FreeBSD, have a look here http://link-to-documentation
2. what do you want to know? I'll try to help, please ask.
3. ... do us a favor and stick with Linux

I need a forum with people who don't have lost their social skills (people like wblock@, talsamon, Oko and others are very friendly and helpful). And I expect a friendly correction when I evaluate something wrong around FreeBSD, I don't want to be slammed down here.

And to clarify another point, Oko
I've written:
(working with GNU/Linux since 1998)
Click to expand...
And you have written:
Forgive me but I have very hard time picturing you working with the Linux since 1998. Some of us work with UNIX since lates 80s and unfortunately with Linux since since 2000
Click to expand...
I mention my experience with GNU/Linux since 1998 because of following reason: I don't want to be treated like a fool beginner with free software, not be able to read manpages, documentation, searching and fixing stuff. Its not my intention to boast with it. We can open another threat to find out, why IMHO this preventive measure is necessary here :)

Kind regards,
Holger
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The Unknown action newaccount responses, from the wiki, confused me because I was (naturally) accepting the invitation, to create an account, beginning with a page that requires edition. Not from the home page of the wiki.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=FreeBSD+"Unknown+action+newaccount" led to http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Wiki-Unable-to-create-an-account-tp5970374p5970379.html with its link to https://wiki.freebsd.org/AboutWiki then I found a 2010 topic, Making the wiki more accessible to contributors.

The wiki could/should be improved; its standard statement e.g. "If you do not have an account, you can create one now." is simply untrue for most readers.

The mailing list subscription and confirmation routine – required for any reports about issues with the content of the wiki or suggestions for improvement of content – is not heavily convoluted, but I suspect that it's perceived by many potential contributors as quite far removed from the wiki, and not particularly user-friendly – an entire list subscription for a single edition to a page, with (unless I'm missing something) no search interface at https://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-doc …

… and so, readers may be discouraged from making reports and suggestions. Or reports are made to the wrong list e.g. https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-pkg/2015-April/001104.html with neither a response, nor a forward to the appropriate list.
 
Don't let people stop you from making your own guides. Do it, put it on your own pages, then let people know. It's always easier to curse the darkness than light the candle and all that.

As for the docs, the Handbook, Arch Wiki, and OpenBSD all have their good and bad points, stuff that works for me, stuff that over complicates (though RedHat and Fedora are the worst as far as that goes), or stuff that assumes too much from me. So, am I dumb or lazy? Well, according to my wife, the answer to both is yes, but what the heck, I still enjoy using these systems.

To say that this one or that one is horrible just reminds me of Tina Fey's great comment, to the effect that it's quite arrogant to decide that something is no good, just because you don't like it. As has been said, when you're pointing a finger, you're pointing 3 back at yourself. (Stops to see how difficult it is to point without pointing back at oneself, because I have no life.)

TL;DR. If you feel you have something to impart to others, put it up on your own site and worry about getting it official later. (And keep in mind that once it becomes official, you have somewhat of a responsibility to keep it current rather than just say on your own pages, some stuff here might be obsolete.)
 
Oko said:
Forgive me but I have very hard time picturing you working with the Linux since 1998. Some of us work with UNIX since lates 80s and unfortunately with Linux since since 2000 due to the demise of Sun Microsystem. I personally consider myself a small part of mature and very competent Springdale Linux and former member of Scientific Linux community. I have never seen statements you made on their mailing lists. re and try to brag us about best "Linux file system" XFS for example you have to expect that somebody actua
Click to expand...

Did you ever think that some people were born in 1980s and start using FreeBSD now?? Did you ever think about that people have different view of life and also about FreeBSD??
Or do you think that is JUST YOUR view correct??

And about FreeBSD documentation: Do you know that people who help with documentation have families, children, full time jobs and maybe not so experience as you?
 
I have a suggestion to update 17.2 https://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/disks-adding.html

I followed it to the letter for a few SATA II drives and then noticed that file copy from one disk to another is quite slow - around 20MB/sec. I searched for solution and stumbled on the excellent wblock@'s site: http://www.wonkity.com/~wblock/docs/html/disksetup.html. I realized that I completely forgot about proper sector alignment. After I redid my disks using the magic -b 1M switch file copy speed increased to 120MB/sec.
 
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