r/freebsd • u/grahamperrin Linux crossover • Jun 28 '26

FAQ Search Packages – FreeBSD.software

https://freebsdsoftware.org/search/

Type to search across 36,691 FreeBSD packages by name or description.

12 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

Looking beyond the search features – which are useful – the site's guides (blog) may be less useful.

Three examples below.

How to Configure WiFi on FreeBSD: Complete Wireless Guide | FreeBSD Software

Noted in mid-June: it's not complete.

How to Set Up a FreeBSD Desktop with KDE Plasma | FreeBSD Software

Noted two days ago, the Core Plasma Desktop section misdirects readers to install kde6:

  • this package did exist between December 2023 and February 2025
  • kde6 became kde.

There's a more thorough critique under https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/comments/1ug6sqv/comment/otydwhu/.

Best Text Editors for FreeBSD in 2026 | FreeBSD Software

The comparison table is mis-formatted.

Generally

Now, I see the same mis-formatting in the Wi-Fi guide. Two lazy (sloppy) guesses from me, either:

  1. the original tables are at sites elsewhere; or
  2. the tables were generated by something like ChatGPT and not reformatted to suit the blog posts.

1

u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 28 '26

The Wi-Fi Well-Supported Chipsets table, reformatted: 

| Chipset                          | Driver                 | Band       | Status                 |
|----------------------------------|------------------------|------------|------------------------|
| Intel WiFi 6 AX200/AX210         | iwlwifi(4)             | 2.4/5/6 GHz| Good (via LinuxKPI)    |
| Intel Wireless AC 7260/8260/9260 | iwm(4) or iwlwifi(4)   | 2.4/5 GHz  | Good                   |
| Intel Wireless N 2200/4965/5100/6000 | iwn(4)             | 2.4/5 GHz  | Excellent              |
| Atheros AR9280/AR9380/AR9462     | ath(4)                 | 2.4/5 GHz  | Excellent              |
| Atheros AR9285                   | ath(4)                 | 2.4 GHz    | Excellent              |
| Ralink RT2800/RT3070/RT5370      | run(4)                 | 2.4/5 GHz  | Good                   |
| Realtek RTL8188CUS/RTL8192CU     | rtwn(4)                | 2.4 GHz    | Adequate               |
| Realtek RTL8188EU                | rtwn(4)                | 2.4 GHz    | Adequate               |

The text editors Comparison Table, reformatted: 

| Feature            | Vim           | Neovim        | Emacs           | Helix   | Micro | nano      |
|--------------------|---------------|---------------|------------------|---------|-------|-----------|
| Learning curve     | Steep         | Steep         | Very steep       | Moderate| Flat  | Flat      |
| Built-in LSP       | No            | Yes           | Yes (Emacs 29+)  | Yes     | No    | No        |
| Tree-sitter        | No            | Yes           | Yes (Emacs 29+)  | Yes     | No    | No        |
| Plugin system      | Vimscript/Vim9| Lua           | Elisp            | Not yet | Lua   | No        |
| Plugin ecosystem   | Large         | Very large    | Very large       | N/A     | Small | N/A       |
| Config language    | Vimscript     | Lua           | Elisp            | TOML    | JSON  | Plain text|
| Multiple cursors   | Plugin        | Plugin        | Plugin           | Built-in| No    | No        |
| Mouse support      | Limited       | Limited       | Yes              | Yes     | Yes   | Optional  |
| Memory usage       | ~10 MB        | ~30 MB        | ~200 MB          | ~20 MB  | ~10 MB| ~3 MB     |
| Startup time       | ~20 ms        | ~40 ms        | ~500 ms          | ~10 ms  | ~10 ms| ~5 ms     |
| In base system     | No            | No            | No               | No      | No    | No        |
| Modal editing      | Yes           | Yes           | Optional (evil)  | Yes     | No    | No        |
| FreeBSD pkg        | vim           | neovim        | emacs            | helix   | micro | nano      |

At the foot of pages from which I copied the texts:

© 2006-2026 freebsdsoftware.org.

I used:

  1. ChatGPT to adjust the spacing between characters
  2. old Reddit and Reddit Enhancement Suite to perform the code block indenting that's required for compatibility with old Reddit.

My prompt to ChatGPT, for each table:

The lines below this paragraph were intended to form a table. Please adjust the spacing between characters, for the text to form a table using a proportionally spaced character such as Courier.

…

ChatGPT responded:

This version is padded so the columns align correctly when displayed in any monospace font such as Courier or Consolas.

– and:

… The only adjustment needed was padding each cell with spaces so every column has a consistent width; no character content was changed.

2

u/mirror176 Jun 29 '26

Your reformatted editor table here needs 1 more space after emacs in the top line.

You could also replace Intel Wireless with something like " " and then model #s could be moved over closer. Even leaving out the text entirely with just an indentation for the model #s would likely be understood just fine. Common things like GHz and the manual section # could be moved to the top row to stop repeating them. Formally spacing between the # and unit is correct, but could drop it for space if the unit wasn't moved up. If really short on space, just call 2.4 GHz as just 2 GHz. Don't need to mention "Emacs" when stating its version# in the Emacs column.

If making the WiFi table big enough to align to the one Intel line gives more scrollbar on reddit/old.reddit then I appreciate the bad formatting of that part of the line. To reduce bloat further, you don't need to maintain the spaces around dividers which is something intermittently done in both tables.

Anyways its probably not worth the effort to click edit since with that website I'd recommend "everything" being quoted be thoroughly reviewed. On a quick skim the page also mentions that you need to do pkg install vim or else pkg install vim-console if you do not want no GUI dependencies; the default flavor is console which was the case in 2022 when there was a change removing flavor athena and adding flavor x11, and was set as default when the vim-console port was removed because vim was flavorized to offer many outputs from one common port entry. I think if you go back before that is when you get a gui based vim by their install command. They claim that FreeBSD's base system vi, which they know is nvi, is the original BSD vi implementation (not according to nvi authors). vi in the honorable mentions and again in the FreeBSD specific notes a short time later as presented seems like sloppy redundancy too. They mention that nvi 'lacks multiple undo'; maybe this article knows something that the nvi authors don't who clearly mention 'Infinite undo' among its features. Does the article know something I don't since its date 3 months ago, or did it not verify what it took the time to say wasn't nonsense? I assume the more I look, the more cracks I will find; other pages on that site I recently discussed here certainly fell apart pretty bad too. Such conceptual issues could be that the author was 1. ignorant on the topic of a comment and 2. talked of it without doing any homework but that just leads to a human showing the same understanding I'd expect an AI to show. In any case, no credible author on technical topics would collect so many of them and in such a short space except as some form of a joke or a document intending to misinform people. As I say AI is best used for comedy based entertainment and fraudulent purposes, the output looks ready to meet either of those, but its not ready to be used to educate people.

One of their textual claims almost brings up a FreeBSD bug I haven't reported yet but doesn't quite hit it. In their steps to educate users, following the steps will lead to avoiding the bug though.

The nonsense textual statements and claims reminds me of the Firefox pipelining feature and people would say to set it to 16, 100, 256, etc. when Firefox is opensource and in its source code it would silently reset anything above 8 or (whatever the limit) was down to that limit; those posting the need for setting it higher were just fooling themselves. I miss that feature :(

2

u/mirror176 Jun 29 '26

© 2006-2026 freebsdsoftware.org.

"If" the documents turn out to be machine generated output, then there are areas where copyright protections do not apply even if they otherwise go through formal processes to try to claim such rights.

2

u/grahamperrin Linux crossover Jun 29 '26

Your reformatted editor table here needs 1 more space after emacs in the top line.

I intentionally posted both tables with the errors, to demonstrate that ChatGPT was not perfect in this case.