Whoa, there's a *nix distro that actually has documentation that can explain things to me like I'm 5 and show case all things special about the OS? This is exceptional good.
I'm undecided between Tiny Core Linux and NetBSD for an old Thinkpad T42, and I had similar emotions reading NetBSDs Guide a few days ago. Tiny Core is really great (I've been using it for 5-6 years) but:
- The T42 needs underclocking. Tiny Core solution: Google and find out that cpufrequtils helps (it did). How about NetBSD? First time reading of the manual, 5-10 minutes, and there it is, a built-in feature: http://netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-power.html#chap-power-a...
- Similar thing with a non-standard keyboard layout: on Tiny Core, it had some symbols missing. To reconfigure the keymap on Tiny Core, I had to Google and find out about Linux's kbd project. Download kbd sources, compile it, read its (comprehensive, but really well written!) manual to get a hang of Linux's keyboard layout files (interesting stuff). Then modify the layout to my needs by trial and error, and then use two of kbd's tools + a minor hack to make it usable under Tiny Core.
What I particularly liked is that the same chapter of the NetBSD Guide also provides a brief and clear how-to for changing keyboard layout at the kernel level. In other words, everything relevant in one place, easy to find, really well structured and written. For a hobbyist like me, reading the Guide is a true learning experience as to how an operating system actually works.
Once again, I absolutely love Tiny Core Linux, its wiki, FAQ, forum, package manager and the provides.sh tool are really great. Excellent distro for less capable or ancient machines. But in terms of documentation, the BSD world does seem to be in a class of its own.
I suppose all three BSDs -- Net, Open and Free -- have more or less equally good documentation, no?
That's not the same at all. This FreeBSD is a user's manual, Gentoo's is a developer's wiki. It doesn't tell me most of the things I need to know to do actual work.
Hm. Gentoo does have a developer's manual[1] which describes in detail how one would be able to package new applications or patch things in the main repository.
Working with Gentoo as a user does require having an understanding of the knobs that portage (the package manager) presents, and this has a certain learning curve. But that learning curve is IMHO worth it for the flexibility that portage brings to the table. Without that flexibility it would be very hard to manage replacing at user's will something as major in the system as the init system, or the whole audio stack or libssl provider.
- The T42 needs underclocking. Tiny Core solution: Google and find out that cpufrequtils helps (it did). How about NetBSD? First time reading of the manual, 5-10 minutes, and there it is, a built-in feature: http://netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-power.html#chap-power-a...
- Similar thing with a non-standard keyboard layout: on Tiny Core, it had some symbols missing. To reconfigure the keymap on Tiny Core, I had to Google and find out about Linux's kbd project. Download kbd sources, compile it, read its (comprehensive, but really well written!) manual to get a hang of Linux's keyboard layout files (interesting stuff). Then modify the layout to my needs by trial and error, and then use two of kbd's tools + a minor hack to make it usable under Tiny Core.
On NetBSD: 5 minutes to read a few paragraphs in the Guide: http://netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-cons.html#chap-cons-wsc.... Works.
What I particularly liked is that the same chapter of the NetBSD Guide also provides a brief and clear how-to for changing keyboard layout at the kernel level. In other words, everything relevant in one place, easy to find, really well structured and written. For a hobbyist like me, reading the Guide is a true learning experience as to how an operating system actually works.
Once again, I absolutely love Tiny Core Linux, its wiki, FAQ, forum, package manager and the provides.sh tool are really great. Excellent distro for less capable or ancient machines. But in terms of documentation, the BSD world does seem to be in a class of its own.
I suppose all three BSDs -- Net, Open and Free -- have more or less equally good documentation, no?