Jason McIntyre <j...@kerhand.co.uk> wrote: > On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 10:07:14PM +0100, Stuart Henderson wrote: > > > > On 2020/04/30 20:52, Gerhard Roth wrote: > > > It it too much to expect users to read the ifconfig man page? > > > > Printed, it is 28 pages of A4. > > > > ouch. > > > Compare with the wifi drivers, you have to look at ifconfig(8) if > > you want all the details, but EXAMPLES in iwm(4) (and I think all the other > > drivers) is enough for a quick bare-bones config. That seems a reasonable > > model. > > > > i think we have lost our way a bit with ifconfig.8. the need to avoid > repitition drove it, but bridge broke it. > > we should start farming out all of the subsections back to their > respective pages.
Respective pages?! The respective page for ifconfig commands *is* the ifconfig page. The drivers impliment various lowlevel and system behaviours, but ifconfig is documenting the commands. > umb.4 is one screenful, but how to use it with > ifconfig is at the end of ifconfig.8. that can;t be optimal. Since the beginning of umb, I've begged for it to stop being a such special snowflake, and to search for common functionality with other drivers, to hide the specialness. But the previous comment remains. These are ifconfig commands. They belong in the ifconfig manual page. We don't describe ls options in filesystem manual pages, we describe them in the ls man page. > of course there's an issue, and it's a big one: IEEE 802.11. farming > that out would inflate a lot of pages, and require care to keep > consistent. It simply makes no sense. Driver options aren't being explained. All of those drivers have interfaces to low-level network stack. The network stack is told what to do with the ifconfig command, using ifconfig options. The docs are in the right place.
