[dmm]

> - ancient userland pthread implementation

There is support for kernel threads in the form of a flag on rfork(2). The golang port uses this. The pthreads library is still the shitty userland one though.

OpenBSD is great because the man pages aren't absolute shit like Linux and networking is so much better. Linux wifi drivers are absolute crap in comparison.

Configure WPA on OpenBSD: ifconfig <interface> nwid <ssid> wpa wpakey <wpakey> up; dhclient <interface>

The equivalent on linux is left as an exercise...

It's still a pretty usable desktop though. The new ACPI support is amazing and a completely new implementation, rather than being built on the reference implementation everyone else used.

> no 802.11n support

That's going to require some work on the 80211 layer.

[adestefan]

> Configure WPA on OpenBSD: ifconfig <interface> nwid <ssid> wpa wpakey <wpakey> up; dhclient <interface> The equivalent on linux is left as an exercise...

  wpa_passphrase <ssid> <wpakey> > /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
  wpa_supplicant -i<interface> -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B
  dhclient <inteface>

Everything is easy when you know how to do it.

[dmm]

On OpenBSD, all of your interface configuration is done with ifconfig and it's all documented with 'man ifconfig'.

On a linux system 'man ifconfig' doesn't even mention iwconfig or wpa_supplicant.

I think that makes it a little easier to learn how to do it.

[levabalkin]

I guess in Linux ifconfig is deprecated in favor of iproute2.

[ghshephard]

Another advantage to OpenBSD - For at least the last 10 years, configuring a network interface has been done through ifconfig.

I'm willing to wager that 10 years from now - configuring an interface will still be done through ifconfig.

[wazoox]

It's a mistake IMO for old hats like myself. After 20 years using ifconfig, it's almost impossible to get used to some new, linux-only tool (even though it may be better).

[adestefan]

It's pretty rare that you actually need to use ifconfig/ip directly in Linux. For every distribution that I know of there's a specific way to setup network interfaces (e.g. /etc/network/interfaces, /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*, etc.)

[sigzero]

Really? No Linux SA that I know...and I know a lot...is using iproute2 over ifconfig.

[CrLf]

The "ip" command has been the preferred way to configure network interfaces in Linux for a few years now. Most functionality isn't available through "ifconfig" at all.

[jolan]

> That's going to require some work on the 80211 layer.

The 80211 guy retired so there's little chance of that happening.

[KonradKlause]

>OpenBSD is great because the man pages aren't absolute shit like Linux and networking is so much better. Linux wifi drivers are absolute crap in comparison.

For example?

[vegai]

http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=wireless&se...

I like Linux in practice, but one must admit that BSDs' manuals are way better.

[cturner]

The problem with linux is that nobody owns responsibility for making the whole man system good.

Linux kernel stuff is covered by the linux man project. This is run by Kerrisk, who is a good communicator - _The Linux Programming Interface_ reads like Stevens but is richer in practical advice.

But if you go to the man page for something like awk or bash or grep (the common use-case - where you need a quick reference), they're maintained by the team who write the tool, or - often enough - not maintained by the team. There are undocumented flags, often the doc only tends to make sense if you already understand the internals of the tool. GNU tool man pages are generally obtuse.

BSD and plan 9 have much better man systems. Unless a linux distribution comes along and makes a conscious effort to solve GNU/linux doc, the man system available to linux users will always suck - it's structural.

[CrLf]

"But if you go to the man page for something like awk or bash or grep [...]"

And this is where you are doing it wrong. For GNU tools, the man page is just a stub. The official documentation is maintained in the form of "info" pages.

Now, you may consider this obtuse (I sure do), but it doesn't mean there is no documentation.

[vegai]

Linux (the kernel) actually has manpages? Are you sure? I've never seen any.

Case in point: check the output of lsmod. How many of those modules have a corresponding manpage? My guess: zero.

Same question for a BSD system (with lsmod changed to kldstat or whatever): all of them.

[cturner]

On linux try 'man select' (defaults to section 2) or 'man kmem' (section 4). Linux man project.