I hack on my OSS project on OpenBSD exclusively. I'm a stickler for good documentation, and the BSDs IMO are far better than Linux.
I use OpenBSD because 3-4 years ago I discovered a bug in the FreeBSD kernel that meant my OSS project wouldn't work. When generating lots of IGMPv2 packets on FreeBSD I could consistently cause the kernel to panic. I wrote a bug report, but I'm not a kernel hacker so I just switched to OpenBSD.
Manpages in Linux are atrocious, and each distro has their own way of doing things that only half works. I don't like GNU info, and Googling for docs is unacceptable. I often work in places with no Internet and I need the doc with me.
This is very true, its navigation is awful. Luckily there is one programme that makes info pages less annoying to browse. It's called 'pinfo', feels similar to lynx, and although it doesn't show from the website, it's a useful tool, nicer than the regular 'info'.
I guess I'm biased as an Arch user but I've found their documentation to be leagues ahead of everything else I've used. That said, it doesn't solve the offline access issue you raised and the BSDs are firmly in second place.
That said, I've been starting to care quite a lot more about security and code correctness in light of recent events and have been waiting for today to install OpenBSD on my machine.
You'd put the bsd handbooks in second place after the Arch wiki? The FreeBSD handbook seems a lot more impressive and coherent to me, so does the OpenBSD documentation.
They're a bit hard to compare imo. The FreeBSD documentation is more coherent but also more focused/narrow, covering only the base system and a few common extensions. The Arch documentation is less coherent, but quite extensive, covering almost everything. I think the Arch wiki is less good as a proper manual, something you'd sit down and read cover to cover as an introduction to the system. But one thing that's nice about it is that it's really a one-stop shop: if you want to know what some package does, how it works, and how to configure it, it's probably there. If it doesn't play nicely with Arch or needs a workaround for common issues, chances are it's documented there too. Whereas with FreeBSD you're good as long as you stick with the base system, but it's a wilderness once you venture out into ports, with documentation/tips/workarounds scattered across the web, forums, mailing lists, StackOverflow, etc.
I use OpenBSD because 3-4 years ago I discovered a bug in the FreeBSD kernel that meant my OSS project wouldn't work. When generating lots of IGMPv2 packets on FreeBSD I could consistently cause the kernel to panic. I wrote a bug report, but I'm not a kernel hacker so I just switched to OpenBSD.
Manpages in Linux are atrocious, and each distro has their own way of doing things that only half works. I don't like GNU info, and Googling for docs is unacceptable. I often work in places with no Internet and I need the doc with me.