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submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@lemy.lol to c/linux@programming.dev

In demonstrating one of the gaps of man pages in modern times and likely having hindered the adoption of the Linux kernel's new mount API, it took more than six years for those system calls to be properly documented within man pages. The Linux "new" mount API was introduced back in mid-2019 with Linux 5.2 and since supported by key file-systems after several years but not until weeks ago was this file descriptor based mount API scoped out within man pages.

The "new" mount API for Linux is a set of system calls like fsopen and fsconfig for offering more flexibility than the Linux kernel's long-used mount system call that is a one-shot approach compared to this modern multi-step design for better flexibility. In the kernels since Linux 5.2, various file-systems have transitioned to supporting the modern mount API. It was only earlier this year that F2FS added support for it as one of the last major file-systems without it.

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[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 39 points 6 days ago

Groff is indeed such a crap format to write documentation in. It nearly reads like zalgo.

I can't wait for the anti markdown people to come out of the woodwork though and complain that it's "the progressivist agenda" to be more user friendly because devs aren't users.

"If you can't write Groff, maybe you dont deserve to read the output"

"The markdown evangelists are so annoying. You can't just rewrite everything in markdown"

"When will this markdown craze stop??? I can't hear it anymore!"

Identity politics entered the developer arena.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip -4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Missing features in Markdown:

  • description lists (some have them, commonmark doesn't)
  • image captions & resizing
  • basic richtext like underline without html syntax
  • native vector (svg) handling

I'm not saying not to use md (vs. asciidoc/tor, restex or orgmode) but to add the features please.

[-] onlinepersona@programming.dev 9 points 6 days ago

Description lists?

Richtext? Like this or this ?

SVG handling? I've never seen a manpage with SVGs nor have I seen a manpage with images, much less image captions.

That's not rich text. Rich text is when a format is applied without structural reason.

You could have a markdown interpreter that displayed **this** *this* or _this_ using any arbitrary format. You could change the color, weight, border, drop shadow, opacity, mouse over effects, font face... Any attribute.

Lemmy has conventions but all * really means is emphasis.

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this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2025
135 points (97.9% liked)

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