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

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.

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

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

For example?

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

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.

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.

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.