[HN Gopher] Top laptops to use with FreeBSD
___________________________________________________________________
Top laptops to use with FreeBSD
Author : fork-bomber
Score : 261 points
Date : 2026-04-09 09:17 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (freebsdfoundation.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (freebsdfoundation.github.io)
| spooneybarger wrote:
| That's a very small list.
| badgersnake wrote:
| It's a subset of a subset. The sets being (FreeBSD users (with
| laptops (who can be bothered to write about them on an obscure
| wiki)))
| guenthert wrote:
| Yeah, compare to https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops it is.
|
| Years ago, there was a project combining Debian with the kernel
| from FreeBSD. That never made sense to me and the project seems
| to have died meanwhile. More sensible, IMHO, might be to bolt
| the FreeBSD user space unto the Linux kernel. That way one
| would get fairly broad and current hardware support and could
| still enjoy a classic Unix look&feel and stable ABI.
| theragra wrote:
| Moreover, many laptops working on Linux perfectly, are not
| Ubuntu certified. Lenovo Legion series generally works well,
| but it is not in the Ubuntu list. Id we'd make a list of all
| 8/10 or more compatible laptops, it would be huge.
| skydhash wrote:
| > More sensible, IMHO, might be to bolt the FreeBSD user
| space unto the Linux kernel.
|
| A lot of BSD utilities that are not POSIX has really close
| interaction with the kernel. OpenBSD's *ctl binaries are
| often the user-facing part of some OS subsystem. Linux
| subsystem often expose a very complex internal that you need
| to use some other project to tame down
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| IMHO the biggest advantage that Debian/kFreeBSD would have
| had would be first-class ZFS support. You can use ZFS with
| Debian today, but the license problem means it only gets
| supported through DKMS, which is a pain; a FreeBSD-based
| Debian could ship binary packages for ZFS that just worked
| out of the box.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| Considering the amount of Linux distros based on Debian, it
| is truly a shame that Debian/kFreeBSD stagnated. We could
| have had Proxmox/kFreeBSD with support for ZFS Boot
| environments! The evolution of FreeNAS/TrueNAS demonstrates
| things have been going in the opposite direction.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is cool in ways, but many manufactures change the internals
| without changing the model number and so I'm not sure how much I
| can trust it. There is a recycled computers place near me that
| will sell me some of those cheap, but how can I be sure the one
| I'm buying is the same as the one tested (if indeed I can find
| any of those model numbers at all - which is a factor of what
| companies near me are recycling this month)
| skydhash wrote:
| I have the latitude 7490 and it worked great with Linux, FreeBSD
| and OpenBSD. The only issue is some hardware design issue where
| lifting it with one hand will cause it to freeze (possibly some
| stress causing a shock or a displacement).
|
| The best resource to check support is
| https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/dmesgd
| shrubble wrote:
| This happened exactly to me also, I suspect some flexing in the
| motherboard or other component; right now it is complaining
| about the RAM and reseating hasn't fixed it. Great laptop
| otherwise however!
| gentile wrote:
| Consider balling up some electrical tape underneath the Ram
| stick. This solved this very specific issue with my laptop that
| was flexing too much and crashing.
| shrubble wrote:
| Between the RAM and the motherboard? Interesting, will try
| it.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| > 9/10
|
| > half of networking doesnt work, and it's the more important one
| for laptop(wifi)
|
| I think they need to revise the scoring
| fullstop wrote:
| It seems like the best way to get WiFi working in FreeBSD is to
| run Linux in bhyve and tunnel your connections through there.
| whalesalad wrote:
| the fact that this is a widely accepted/encouraged practice
| is genuinely unhinged
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Why? Nothing wrong with running your network interface in a
| VM. There are reasons for doing so even if drivers aren't
| an issue. Qubes OS does this, for instance, for security
| reasons.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Windows also does. Almost everything is a VM in windows
| these days.
|
| It's just how things work these days. If you'd say "I run
| my VPN client in a docker container" it would raise a lot
| less eyebrows. Yet it's not very different, really.
|
| Though conceptually I'd frown at having to run Linux. I'd
| prefer upgrading the hardware to a supported chip.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Windows isn't running entire fucking separate kernel to
| run wifi driver, the fuck you're talking about
| evanjrowley wrote:
| Definitely not independent kernels but my guess is he's
| referring to Virtualization-Based Security (VBS) - it
| gets turned on by default if your Win10/11 system has
| virtualization enabled. One such example
| security solution is memory integrity, which protects and
| hardens Windows by running kernel mode code integrity
| within the isolated virtual environment of VBS. Kernel
| mode code integrity is the Windows process that checks
| all kernel mode drivers and binaries before they're
| started, and prevents unsigned or untrusted drivers or
| system files from being loaded into system memory.
|
| I suppose this applies to Wi-Fi drivers?
|
| Link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-
| hardware/design/de...
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| no matter how it's implemented, it must not be a user-
| requiring (or even user-facing) task
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Why not? FreeBSD has never been intended as a batteries
| included, everything "just works" out of the box OS. It's
| meant to have a bare minimum install and let the user
| choose how things are set up. You can disagree with that
| philosophy, but that's not an indictment of FreeBSD. Just
| go use something that aligns better with your
| preferences.
| skydhash wrote:
| Not really weird when some firmware are close to being full
| blown OS. An alpine VM can be run with 64 MB which is lower
| than a lot of software.
| fullstop wrote:
| I've used cellular modems which run Linux or ThreadX
| internally.
| mlfreeman wrote:
| Weren't there iPhones that had wifi chips that ran Linux?
| wolvoleo wrote:
| FreeBSD 15 has done a lot for WiFi apparently.
|
| I'm not sure how good it is as I don't use wifi but it's
| supposed to be much better.
| yabones wrote:
| That kind of seems crazy to me, considering OpenBSD has
| worked perfectly fine with every wifi capable device I've
| tested it on. Granted, most of them were older machines.
|
| Is this just an artifact of FreeBSD primarily focusing on
| server hardware rather than consumer/end-user stuff?
| wpm wrote:
| Basically no one supports Broadcom SoftMAC WiFi cards very
| well, but OpenBSD just doesn't. I have a 2015 MacBook Air
| with a BCM4350 where the recommended fix is to go buy a
| FullMAC card from a similar vintage MacBook Pro and just
| cope with the fact that the card barely fits in the case
| and can't be secured properly.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| It seems the best way to get WiFi working is to run Linux and
| FreeBSD in a VM..
| cperciva wrote:
| I agree that 9/10 is a bit of a strange score there, but it's
| not all that bad: You can get a $15 wifi dongle and use that
| instead. It occupies a USB port and looks a bit ugly, but it's
| still a fairly easy workaround.
| bluedino wrote:
| Is there a cheap, common USB wifi dongle that works?
|
| In the old days I kept a couple Realtek USB adapters around
| that would almost always work out of the box or with
| ndiswrapper
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| No need to get a USB dongle. You can use PCI passthrough to a
| Linux VM that has the Wifi driver.
|
| See my comment here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47704816
| justin66 wrote:
| That's insanely complicated compared to plugging in a USB
| dongle.
| rubatuga wrote:
| If you've ever had to deal with usb hotplugging then no
| pci pass through is much simpler
| ssl-3 wrote:
| It's only complicated once, though -- at initial setup.
|
| And that setup part can be largely automated:
| https://github.com/pgj/freebsd-wifibox
|
| (The computer itself doesn't care much about the
| complexity. It's a computer.)
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| My approach costs $0 . You don't need to do the heavy
| lifting, Wifibox does.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| I'd like to know more about what it takes to turn on PCI
| pass through for laptop hardware. On desktops and servers
| it's typically the IOMMU setting in the BIOS. Is that also
| commonly available on laptops?
| guzfip wrote:
| FreeBSD WiFi is certainly fun.
|
| Some years ago, I was workig with FreeBSD on an old laptop. The
| laptop had a wireless adapter that ostensible should be
| supported, but was not.
|
| After some digging, I realized the driver was just missing some
| PCIe device identifiers. I added them to driver and bam my WiFi
| is working without issue.
|
| I tried to submit a bug report and patch, and it got positive
| feedback at first any changes even got committed. But then I
| learned why it's better to not even try.
|
| Apparently this was a known issue, but only in the heads of the
| FreeBSD wireless developers. They had their reasons for not
| adding the device, but the reasons did not appear to be
| documented in mailing lists or docs until my thread. At that
| point I realized it's not worth it to try and contribute to
| such large projects as I just lack the decades of institutional
| knowledge of the system.
|
| Anyway, I'm not sure it ever got released. I believe there's an
| umbrella bug somewhere left after the version my patch
| supported went out of support.
| mmsc wrote:
| FreeBSD works perfectly on intel MacBooks if you've got one
| laying around: https://joshua.hu/FreeBSD-on-MacbookPro-114-A1398
| whalesalad wrote:
| Probably not T2 MacBooks though.
| bxparks wrote:
| From the link: "Note: The inbuilt WiFi chip is not natively
| supported by FreeBSD, so you will need to (temporarily) use a
| USB WiFi or Ethernet dongle, or (as I will explain) copy some
| files from a different system to the Macbook. You could also
| just transplant a different chip into the system."
|
| You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you
| think it means.
|
| To be fair, Linux also has trouble with the Broadcom chip, the
| driver needs to be installed as a separate step on most
| distros.
| skydhash wrote:
| I think the intersection between BSD users and people who
| will buy a dongle or use Ethernet is a perfect circle.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| > Broadcom
|
| Here's the real problem.
|
| It's sad how a company that spawned the raspberry pi in
| earlier times got so evil so quickly.
| shrubble wrote:
| Every Raspberry Pi ships with a closed source OS, ThreadX,
| that boots Linux, BTW.
| justin66 wrote:
| It's MIT licensed now, which isn't particularly useful
| when it comes to Pi (there's some Broadcom crap in that
| boot loader so it won't be open sourced) but otherwise is
| kind of interesting.
|
| https://github.com/eclipse-threadx
| bityard wrote:
| Broadcom (and to a lesser extent, Realtek) devices had
| always been anywhere between hit-or-miss and completely
| unworkable on Linux, LONG before Raspberry Pi came around.
| trinix912 wrote:
| My experience too. Sometimes I did manage to eventually
| get their cards working under Linux after pulling some
| proprietary firmware blobs.
| sausagefeet wrote:
| I imagine that is because modern Broadcom is a different
| Broadcom, Avago bought and took the name in 2016.
| fhn wrote:
| RaspberryPi Foundation spawned the raspberry pi and used a
| Broadcom SOC.
| mmsc wrote:
| > You say "works perfectly". I do not think it means what you
| think it means.
|
| Copying some files from a different machine is not that
| burdensome. The point is, it works.
| marssaxman wrote:
| By that logic, every piece of software ever made can be
| said to work perfectly in every situation, because there is
| always _some_ amount of additional work which could be done
| to make up for its native deficiencies.
| irusensei wrote:
| In my opinion pre alder lake intel is the sweet spot for FreeBSD.
| Not sure about AMD but anything before 2020 should work just
| fine. Just avoid CPUs with heterogenous core configurations for
| now.
| shevy-java wrote:
| Good old FreeBSD - always trying to catch up to Linux.
| jmclnx wrote:
| Glad to see this list, will keep an eye on it !
|
| Now to be fair, in a few ways I think it is ahead. Now if you
| said "catch up to Linux in hardware support" I would fully
| agree.
|
| Last I heard, its VM (swap/memory) processes is still better,
| but seems many Linux people avoid swap space these days. FWIW,
| I always have swap on any system that allows it.
|
| And Jails, IMO nothing on Linux comes close to how good FreeBSD
| Jails is.
| bionsystem wrote:
| Incus is pretty damn good to be fair. You can mix and match
| VMs and containers, the terraform provider "just works", the
| setup is fast and easy, it plays well with ZFS. Now I
| wouldn't be surprised if it still lags jails (or Illumos
| Zones) in robustness or some capabilities but I'm a happy
| user of them now.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| I use IncusOS when I need the Linux kernel for some
| specific hardware like the latest graphics or some AI
| accelerator. FreeBSD for when none of those things are
| necessary.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Not really, it's just different. Not trying to be the same,
| which catching up implies.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| This isn't a holy war, and freeBSD does well for itself where
| it's good. It's definitely oriented to servers.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads like
| this. I would get it if FreeBSD was a product you paid for, or
| someone was evangelizing about how you're missing out if you
| don't get the FreeBSD laptop experience, or something.
|
| As someone who liked FreeBSD in the past and curious to check it
| out again, I'm glad to have this handy list.
| stackghost wrote:
| >It's crazy how much negativity there is in comment threads
| like this
|
| I think it's because this chart continues a trend I've noticed
| with BSD zealots. Namely, there's some sort of reality
| distortion effect at play.
|
| Consider that there are obvious bullshit scores on TFA, like
| giving a laptop 9/10 when the fucking wifi doesn't work. In
| reality, this should be 5/10 or arguably 0/10. After all, what
| use is a laptop without wifi? If my laptop's wifi didn't work I
| wouldn't just buy a usb-ethernet adapter and never bring it
| anywhere; I would get a new laptop because a laptop without
| WiFi is useless.
|
| On top of that there was a while here where every BSD thread
| had:
|
| - a comment about how BSD powers the PlayStation, Netflix, and
| other FAANGs, except those corps don't contribute enough back
| because of the license so won't you please subsidize these
| giant corps by donating to BSD?
|
| - people who argue BSD is superior because it's "more cohesive"
| and "feels cleaner" or similar
|
| - OpenBSD zealots claiming it's 110% secure because trust me
| bro
|
| Mostly I'm just tired of people claiming BSD is this amazing
| new thing with no flaws, when reality is that it has got some
| niche use cases, I suspect lots of its developers don't even
| dogfood it, and is otherwise superceded by Linux in nearly
| every meaningful way.
|
| I have no problem with BSD, and I have two boxes in my basement
| running freeBSD right now, but I'm not delusional about BSD's
| limitations.
| asveikau wrote:
| > Mostly I'm just tired of people claiming BSD is this
| amazing new thing
|
| I don't think I've heard anybody claim BSD is new.
|
| > Netflix, and other FAANGs, except those corps don't
| contribute enough back because of the license
|
| I believe Netflix has upstreamed a lot to FreeBSD. They don't
| do it because the license compels them, they do it because
| upstreaming your changes makes maintenance easier.
|
| > If my laptop's wifi didn't work I wouldn't just buy a usb-
| ethernet adapter and never bring it anywhere
|
| I'm going to guess with this rant that you weren't using
| Linux in the olden days, because that's what it was like. The
| workaround isn't using wired ethernet by the way..you can get
| a USB wifi adapter or you can buy an m.2 wifi card. On on one
| of my machines I got a cheap m.2 Intel ax200 (just checked,
| about $15 on eBay) because it runs faster on FreeBSD than the
| one that shipped with my laptop.
| stackghost wrote:
| >I'm going to guess with this rant that you weren't using
| Linux in the olden days, because that's what it was like.
|
| I've been using Linux and BSD in one form or another since
| 2003, and I definitely used wpa_supplicant on the command
| line to connect my Thinkpad to WiFi. And you're right, it
| did suck. It was not a 9/10 experience by a long shot.
| dizhn wrote:
| Regarding your wifi example. I did have to replace it
| with an intel one on my Lenovo because wifi would not
| work with something connected to Bluetooth (might have
| been USB . I don't recall). This is on Windows by the
| way. I just replaced it instead of fighting it. Same
| reason people prefer AMD on linux but this is changing
| with better Nvidia support.
| asveikau wrote:
| Do you remember ndiswrapper?
|
| FreeBSD actually has a similar thing, you can run Linux
| wifi drivers inside a VM and pass through the adapter.
| There's a port called wifibox that does this.
|
| You can even forward the Unix domain socket for wpa-
| supplicant from the guest to host, so all the normal
| tools that talk to wifi cards via that socket work
| transparently.
| olivierestsage wrote:
| I think what you're seeing is partly a consequence of how
| capable Linux has become. Linux is in a weird phase where it
| can still be enjoyed by hobbyists/enthusiasts/eccentric
| types, which were arguably its original audience, but now you
| can also Zoom and do work and install Steam on it, which
| gives it less appeal from the niche/hobby angle. The software
| ecosystem in Linux is also increasingly homogenizing, which
| helps with the "practicality" aspect, but also diminishes the
| niche appeal. BSDs are in a position to snap up that audience
| that appreciates engineering elegance/design and uses the
| computer as an end unto itself (not just as a means to an
| end). This audience isn't necessarily bothered by wonky
| laptop WiFi, and may even enjoy tinkering with it as a hobby
| project. Just my take.
| skydhash wrote:
| If you don't care about administrating your computer and just
| want to use some software on some hardware, the BSDs are not
| that great. But if you do, the experience is better on the
| BSD land because cohesiveness reduces cognitive debt.
|
| Also I wouldn't make hardware support an OS quality metric.
| Linux get by with NDA and with direct contributions from the
| vendors. Which is something the BSDs don't want/don't benefit
| from.
| stackghost wrote:
| >If you don't care about administrating your computer and
| just want to use some software on some hardware, the BSDs
| are not that great.
|
| Yes this is my opinion also. BSD seems more suited to
| people for whom fiddling with the OS itself is the point,
| rather than the OS being a tool to get other things done.
|
| I fall firmly into the latter camp. I'd rather chew glass
| than manually set flags in rc.conf
| skydhash wrote:
| I like the word tune rather than fiddle. The BSD are very
| stable. You adjust some configuration, and then updates
| without having to change your tools or your config with
| every release. The config are not provided out of the box
| but the manuals can be very informative.
|
| A lot of current GNU/Linux complexity have no benefits
| for most users and may be an hindrance when they want to
| slightly alter their use cases. sudo ->
| doas systemd -> rcctl nftable -> pf
| iproute2|netplan -> ifconfig|route
| alsa|pulseaudio|pipewire -> sndiod
| cgroups|podman|lxc -> jails(freebsd)*
|
| The first column may have valid use cases, but I strongly
| doubt those cases include casual usage. Simple tools that
| work well is better than complex tools that solves
| everything.
|
| * Openbsd does not like containers or being a vm host
| SoftTalker wrote:
| OpenBSD doesn't have containers but does have a virtual
| machine system (vmm(4), vmd(8), vmctl(8)) in base.
| throwaway27448 wrote:
| > I would get a new laptop because a laptop without WiFi is
| useless.
|
| Why would you not just replace the wifi card or use a USB
| one? You're greatly overemphasizing how much this matters.
| justin66 wrote:
| Seriously. I'd rip the wifi hardware out of the laptop with
| a spoon if it somehow got me a laptop that handles sleep
| mode properly. I can't even imagine what that would be like
| with a Unix (aside from a Mac).
| NekkoDroid wrote:
| Fun fact: My old Lenovo Y50 only supports like 3 specific
| WiFi cards else it doesn't even POST. And I think none of
| them work with upstream Linux drivers (I think, have only 2
| different ones and neither worked ages ago and I changed
| laptops a while ago and haven't retested). Actually I think
| one didn't have bluetooth work (the non-standard one) and
| the other needed the broadcom-wl package.
| estebank wrote:
| Paradoxically, given their otherwise positive standing,
| Lenovo has keept allowlists on their BIOS for specific
| devices on specific ports. For example, I have a T460
| that has an m2 slot that only works with two specific
| WWAN modules.
| rfmoz wrote:
| There are modified BIOS firmware that allow any WiFi
| card. Good luck
| NekkoDroid wrote:
| I remember seeing something in that direction when I was
| looking but never did look deeper into it.
|
| The post made me actually take out the laptop again and
| maybe use it as a server or something like that in the
| future and for that I'd use ethernet anyway.
| stackghost wrote:
| I prefer not to live that dongle life.
|
| WiFi on a laptop is table stakes. I'd rather use an
| operating system that works without dongulation.
| CamouflagedKiwi wrote:
| Replacing the wifi card isn't necessarily easy. I'd rather
| not buy and use a USB dongle for it if I can just get it
| out of the box.
|
| I remember doing those kind of things nearly two decades
| ago now, I don't expect to have to do that in 2026. If
| people want to, that's fine, but the parent comment is
| right here: giving it 9/10 without working wifi is
| ridiculous.
| sidkshatriya wrote:
| > I would get a new laptop because a laptop without WiFi is
| useless.
|
| You can run Linux in a VM and PCI passthrough your WiFi
| Adapter. Linux drivers will be able to connect to your wifi
| card and you can then supply internet to FreeBSD.
|
| Doing this manually is complicated but the whole process has
| been automated on FreeBSD by "Wifibox"
|
| https://freebsdfoundation.org/our-work/journal/browser-
| based...
|
| I tried it myself and it worked pretty well for a wifi card
| not supported by FreeBSD.
|
| So, no need to get a new laptop :-)
| mghackerlady wrote:
| is there a similar thing for GPUs? I want to build a
| workstation and have it work on freebsd but would prefer to
| use an intel arc card which has no information about
| freebsd compatibility online
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I would argue that much of the mentioned zealotry is a sort
| of kneejerk response to cult-like behavior from some Linux
| adherents. It's mostly defensive; these people want continued
| variety in the FOSS desktop space and feel that's threatened
| by Linux.
| pimeys wrote:
| I don't understand this. I've been running Linux for
| decades, and FreeBSD for decades. Love both systems.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > OpenBSD zealots claiming it's 110% secure because trust me
| bro
|
| Or possibly because it has a good track record. If you'd like
| to point at actual vulnerabilities go ahead.
| maximilianburke wrote:
| It's not so much the vulnerabiltiies as that OpenBSD's
| mitigations often seem targeted towards imaginary issues.
| stackghost wrote:
| >Or possibly because it has a good track record.
|
| "Only two remote code execution vulns in the default
| install" isn't saying much, because the default install has
| essentially no functionality. Similarly, RCE is not the
| only kind of vuln.
|
| Let's just say it is not the mainstream consensus that
| OpenBSD is meaningfully more secure than an up-to-date
| linux. This may have been true in 1995, but it's generally
| acknowledged by people who know what they're talking about
| that OpenBSD's reputation for security is overstated.
| f1shy wrote:
| If you look the table you will realize 9/10 means 9 of 10
| included HW devices run. Is not a scale from 0 to 10. Is not
| a "out of ten" in usability scale. Just count the devices
| that work, vs. the ones included in the HW.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| I am not negative about it at all. I love it.
|
| It's not as polished as linux obviously, especially for desktop
| usage but the maintainers are very much on the ball (and they
| do a lot of work to get things to compile and work, there's a
| lot of linuxisms they have to work around).
| Gud wrote:
| Why is that "obviously "? I find Linux to be a broken mess.
|
| FWIW I use them both, FreeBSD and Arch , but let's not
| pretend the layers of crap tacked onto the Linux kernel is
| some pinnacle of computing.
| realusername wrote:
| While I like the simplicity from FreeBSD, this simplicity
| also comes specifically because there's less contributions.
|
| I doubt anything can get the scale of Linux and not have
| some mess.
| ux266478 wrote:
| > this simplicity also comes specifically because there's
| less contributions.
|
| Not entirely. A rather large amount of Linux's mess stems
| from the fact that it was a hobbyist project in its
| foundational years. It was never clean or well designed,
| at any point in its life. Go look at Linux 1.2.0 vs
| FreeBSD 2.0
|
| Even when Linux began to get traction, it had already
| developed an ingrained culture that didn't particularly
| care about "nice" code or architectural solutions. The
| BSDs inherited their culture where such things _were_
| prioritized. You 're right that things get messier as
| they get larger, but the gap between the two is much,
| much larger than can possibly be accounted for. Things
| like Linux not respecting NICE values have very little to
| do with surface-level problems like stylistic
| inconsistencies in the source code.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| What is sad is that even though Linux now has hardware support
| that is miles ahead of Windows, we've exchanged one problem
| with another, because nowadays most of the hardware I see is
| only supported on Linux and nothing else.
|
| Even on PCs, latest generation AMD graphics cards (already >1yr
| old) are not supported in _anything_ other than Linux (and
| Windows). This is just sad.
| craftkiller wrote:
| FreeBSD uses a compatibility layer to run the Linux graphics
| drivers, though it lags behind Linux. So if FreeBSD currently
| does not support the graphics cards, it will soon. It looks
| like they are currently porting over 6.11:
| https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/proj-laptop/issues/41
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| It is the _only_ OSS operating system that supports AMD
| cards from this decade, and it does so by having to emulate
| the Linux kernel API, and yet _still_ it lags years behind
| Linux itself. I've chosen this example for a reason -- this
| is exactly what I'm sad about.
| 0x457 wrote:
| That and WiFi being stuck at 802.11g is what made me
| switch. It was a very sad day for me when I uninstalled
| FreeBSD from all of non-server machines.
| craftkiller wrote:
| That certainly _used_ to be the case, but it looks like
| 802.11ac is supported in iwlwifi since FreeBSD 14.3: http
| s://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwlwifi&sektion=4&.
| ..
|
| And it looks like they're adding 802.11ac support to some
| realtek drivers too: https://www.freebsd.org/status/repor
| t-2025-10-2025-12/#_linu...
| 0x457 wrote:
| Not to sound like goal post mover, but once you tried
| 802.11be @ 6GHz, you never go back (assuming what your AP
| connected to can handle it).
|
| That's my problem with FreeBSD on non-servers -
| eventually it's supported, usually via Linux shim, but
| it's too late. By the time FreeBSD started to support (on
| CURRENT) GPU that forced me to switch, I already upgraded
| twice.
|
| Glad it's getting better.
| skydhash wrote:
| I wouldn't mind faster wifi speed, but reverse
| engineering stuff has always been slow (i.e Asahi Linux,
| and they only have a few device to investigate)
| craftkiller wrote:
| eh I've got 802.11be @ 6ghz at home (u7 pro AP and
| QCNCM865 client) and it is truly impressive, but I only
| notice the difference once every 1-2 years when I'm
| transferring a full-disk image over the network for
| backup. We've long passed the point where the speed
| improvements matter for daily usage (browsing the web,
| streaming video, remote desktop, installing updates). For
| those use cases, you wouldn't notice a slowdown on
| 802.11ac and I'd argue even 802.11n would be fine.
|
| The one exception I can think of would be video content
| creators since they end up with large amounts of raw
| video that would benefit from transferring at much-
| faster-than-streaming speeds.
|
| And I guess steam downloads if you don't plan ahead at
| all, but if I'm planning to play a game later, I'll tell
| steam to install it hours or days in advance.
| 0x457 wrote:
| I often have to transfer large files in LAN. 802.11ac and
| 802.11n definitely enough for most of the time. I often
| have to transfer large files between machines in LAN,
| with 802.11ac makes you remember that it's wireless,
| while 802.11be makes you forget.
|
| I have the same setup for a framework main board next to
| the AP, and it's reliably faster than using their usb-c
| ethernet extension card.
| rjsw wrote:
| Ethernet works fine for me at home, only use WiFi when
| travelling.
| delta_p_delta_x wrote:
| > now has hardware support that is miles ahead of Windows
|
| [X] doubt.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Windows is cleaning up a lot of legacy drivers. A bunch of
| printers (+ scanners) that predate updates to the printer
| driver framework in recent versions of windows just don't
| have functioning drivers anymore, despite being perfectly
| functional.
|
| All these devices work out of the box on linux, more or
| less.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Most devices that you can buy for under $400 now run on
| ARM chips (frequently Mediatek). We're talking tablets
| (with keyboards), convertibles, even outright laptops
| (i.e. "netbooks"). These things qualify as computers.
| They are replacing traditional laptops, just as those
| replaced desktops.
|
| And they do _not_ run Linux out of the box.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| If we're looking at sub-$400 computers, especially on
| ARM, it seems like we have to include the large segment
| of ChromeOS devices that _only_ run Linux out of the box
| (or at all, generally).
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Referring to Intel Chromebooks (i.e. laptops), that
| segment is now dwindling in size much as its predecessor
| (Intel Windows netbooks) did a few years ago. Most low-
| end ChromeOS devices now run on ARM. And Android is
| nipping at their heels.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Sure. And all of those devices run Linux. Some of them
| even run other Linux OSs decently; one of my daily
| drivers is an ARM Chromebook running postmarketos.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| It is not trivial to get FOSS Linux onto a write-
| protected Intel Chromebook, compared to a Windows netbook
| of yore. It is harder still to get it onto an ARM
| Chromebook or Android tablet. PostmarketOS is a bit
| simpler (or at least better documented) but it is not a
| full Linux distro.
|
| Installing a fully-fledged FOSS OS on low-end general-
| purpose computing hardware is getting harder. Certainly
| for the non-techies who have to be part of FOSS if it is
| to survive.
| ux266478 wrote:
| Most devices in that class I see run some vendor flavor
| of Android or ChromeOS and not Windows, so definitionally
| speaking they do run Linux out of the box.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Yes but it's a bit academic. The problem is that getting
| a FOSS distro of Linux onto low-end general-purpose
| computing hardware is harder now than it was a decade
| ago. I speak from bitter recent experience.
| ux266478 wrote:
| Oh, I know perfectly well what you mean. The move to the
| SoC paradigm has serious implications for the future of
| computing freedom. I can't imagine how we might be able
| to fight this crap, realistically.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| There is only one area where windows excels: recent PC-
| based hardware. For everything else, primarily including
| anything that is not PC, and anything that is from more
| than a decade and a half or so ago, Linux is miles ahead,
| and there's no discussion possible.
|
| Whether this is any helpful to us is another story.
| ux266478 wrote:
| Why do you think so?
| cevn wrote:
| It's sad because it removes choice from users over what OS
| to run. People that only use windows are going and throwing
| their old computers away.
| ux266478 wrote:
| I think of it more in the reverse, the choice being
| removed is the hardware you can use. It has been the case
| from the dawn of computing that you start from a usecase
| (which correlates to software, which maps to an operating
| system) and then look at your options for hardware. The
| more specific your usecase, the more specific your
| software, which correlates to a specific choice of
| hardware. There is no, and can be no, "have it all". It's
| a fundamental principle of mathematics, the postulates
| you choose radically change the set of proofs you have
| access to, and the set of proofs you choose entail the
| axioms and structures you can take.
|
| Now it can be better or worse, and right now it's never
| been better. There was a time when your language, your
| shell and your operating system were specific to the
| exact _model_ of computer (not just a patched kernel,
| everything was fully bespoke) and you have a very limited
| set of peripherals. That we suffer from more esoteric
| operating systems lagging behind the bleeding edge of
| extremely complicated peripherals is a very good place to
| be in. That there 's always room for improvement
| shouldn't be cause for sadness.
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| > Now it can be better or worse, and right now it's never
| been better. There was a time when your language, your
| shell and your operating system were specific to the
| exact model of comput
|
| No, it is not. There was a small period of time between
| the 90s and the 2010s where you could grab almost every
| 386 OS and have your hardware mostly decently run for it,
| and if not, drivers would be easily written from
| manufacturer specifications. That time was definitely
| better then than what we have today, or what we had
| before then. I am writing this as someone who was written
| serial port controller drivers for the BeOS.
|
| > That we suffer from more esoteric operating systems
| lagging behind the bleeding edge of extremely complicated
| peripherals is a very good place to be in.
|
| This is the wrong logic, because operating systems become
| esoteric since they can't support the hardware, and
| hardware becomes complicated and under-specified because
| there's basically only one operating system to take care
| of. You may _think_ you have no reason to be sad if
| you're a user of Windows or Linux, but you have plenty
| anyway.
| ux266478 wrote:
| > There was a small period of time between the 90s and
| the 2010s where you could grab almost every 386 OS and
| have your hardware mostly decently run for it
|
| And prior to that, you could grab _every_ OS running on
| IBM clones and not have to worry about graphics drivers
| at all, because graphics acceleration wasn 't a thing.
| The era you refer to had already introduced software
| contingency on hardware within x86. This disparity was
| further compounded in the mid-2010s as GPUs exploded in
| complexity and their drivers screamed into tens of
| millions of lines of code, eclipsing kernels themselves.
| This is not distinguishable from the introduction of
| graphics drivers in any generalized manner. They were
| driven by the same process.
|
| An important thing I want to point out as well; you're
| doing a lot of heavy lifting by limiting the pool to x86
| computers, which is already giving up and admitting to a
| very strong restriction of hardware choice. Don't take
| that as pedantry, it's a very well hidden assumption that
| you've accidentally overlooked, or in the case that you
| think it's irrelevant, I'm letting you know that I don't
| consider it irrelevant in the slightest. When I think of
| computers, I'm not just thinking of x86 PCs. In the 90s
| I'm thinking of SGI workstations, Acorns, Amiga, Macs.
| I'm thinking of mainframes and supercomputers and
| everything else.
|
| > This is the wrong logic, because operating systems
| become esoteric since they can't support the hardware
|
| On the contrary, I assure you that _this_ logic rests on
| faulty premises. As a general principle it 's clearly
| false since most operating systems (which are long
| forgotten) predate it by decades, and in the specific
| context of Linux winning over FreeBSD, it's still not
| applicable as that happened smack dab in this era you
| describe.
|
| > You may _think_ you have no reason to be sad if you're
| a user of Windows or Linux, but you have plenty anyway.
|
| I'm a user of Linux, FreeBSD and 9Front. I just don't
| (and never have) bought hardware at random. You can
| reason your way into sadness any which way, but
| rationalization isn't always meaningfully justified. I
| just don't find it sad that my second desktop can't have
| an RX 9000 whatever in it. Where's the cut off line for
| that? Why not be sad that I can't jam a Fujitsu ARM
| processor into a PCIE slot as another type of satellite
| processor? The incompatibility is of the same effect, but
| I don't see you lamenting or even considering the latter,
| as though mounting a processor to a PCB is somehow
| fundamentally less possible than writing a modern
| graphics driver.
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Interesting. I use FreeBSD on my desktop too but it's really a
| desktop so I don't have to bother with WiFi or bluetooth. I
| generally dislike laptops for ergonomic reasons, and I never
| bring my computers anywhere anyway so I just buy NUCs. Not having
| to buy for a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery helps keep the
| price down.
|
| I like it for several reasons. It's a holistic system which means
| it's much easier to understand, not a collection of random parts
| thrown together. There is only really one (big) distro so
| documentation is easy to come by and consistent. I love the way
| the updates of the system are uncoupled from the userland
| software so you can have rolling packages but a stable OS.
|
| Also the ports collection is great (being able to manually
| compile every package with different flags where needed). And
| jails. And ZFS first-class citizen. Also I like the attitude.
| Less involvement from big tech, less strive to change for
| change's sake. It feels a lot more stable, every new version
| there's only a few things changed. It's not that with every major
| update I have to learn everything anew again because someone
| wanted to include their new init system (like systemd),
| configuration tools (like ifconfig -> ip), packaging system (like
| snap) etc. Things that work fine are just left alone.
|
| It has some really good ideas also, like boot environments. But
| it's not linux. It's not meant to be.
|
| But yeah if you want everything all figured out for you, don't
| use FreeBSD. Just take a commercial linux like ubuntu. You'll
| need to tinker a bit, which I like because it helps me understand
| my system. FreeBSD is a bit like Linux was in the early 2000s, it
| mostly works but you often have to dive into a shell for some
| magic. The good thing is having ZFS snapshots as a safety net
| though. Never really get caught out that way.
| vehemenz wrote:
| > FreeBSD is a bit like Linux was in the early 2000s, it mostly
| works but you often have to dive into a shell for some magic.
|
| Which, ironically, is what Linux users have been saying for
| ages with respect to Windows, but the market share speaks for
| itself.
| sroerick wrote:
| There's an axiom here which is that the better your overall user
| experience is, the less hardware support you are going to have.
|
| The more accessible software becomes the more infra is required
| to support it, and the more complex and convoluted the software
| will be
| Jotalea wrote:
| I'd say Juana Manso laptops are usable with FreeBSD. sure, you
| lose brightness control, you can't see how much battery remains,
| (I didn't try wifi but the 9650AC chip seems to be supported),
| but it is usable. audio works, USB works, video works when you
| load the Intel drivers.
| sunshine-o wrote:
| I personally feel like the race to support a vast array of
| hardware is very costly for such a small team and might be a
| waste of their precious resources.
|
| Of course I love FreeBSD and want it to be supported on my
| desktop or laptop but at what cost?
|
| Here is the question I have always wanted to ask: Why not make
| the ultimate compromise and say: you will be able to run FreeBSD
| on almost all laptops but it is gonna be through let say an
| Alpine Linux hypervisor and we are gonna ship it with all the
| glue you need to have a great experience.
|
| About every CPU has great visualization capabilities nowadays and
| the perf are amazing.
|
| Now some might start screaming at the idea but you already run
| your favorite operating system through a stack of software you do
| not trust or control: UEFI, CPU microcode, etc.
|
| I believe we need OS diversity and if so much of the energy of
| project is spent on working on an infinite hardware support, how
| much is left for the real innovation?
| kombine wrote:
| I agree. Linux has a wealth of hardware drivers and the time
| would be better spent on a translation layer or do it via
| running a VM or even using LLMs to port the drivers over to
| FreeBSD en masse. That way BSD team can focus on their unique
| strengths.
| atmosx wrote:
| My guess is that *BSDs will see a huge boosts in HW support
| in the following years, primarily due to LLMs.
| supliminal wrote:
| Yeah you run into this head on trying to use BSD. It's too much
| glue and compat work. By the end of it you no longer have a
| coherent system, you're back to Linux.
|
| I use FBSD on an old-ish Lenovo W540 without too many hiccups.
| No, it's not for everyone and never was. I wouldn't suggest to
| anyone to run a BSD as a daily driver, or at all, unless they
| have a good reason to. Once you cross that line you need to know
| what and why.
| Xmd5a wrote:
| > Once you cross that line you need to know what and why.
|
| This is counterbalanced by the fact there is often one
| straightforward solution to every problem you run into, and
| those have been abundantly discussed online. Written as someone
| who just gave it a try.
| supliminal wrote:
| It's also that so many real-world use cases of BSDs entirely
| avoid these issues. If they were dominant concerns they would
| be addressed in a very professional manner, like the rest of
| the system. But the target market for these things just
| doesn't overlap. Maybe there is a market for a BSD-esque
| approach to solving these things, but honestly? Meh.
| vermaden wrote:
| I own these and they also work great with FreeBSD:
|
| ThinkPads:
|
| - W520/W530/T520/T530/X220/X230/T420s
|
| - T480
|
| - T14 GEN1 (Intel)
|
| - T14 GEN1 (AMD)
|
| I needed to replace MediaTek WiFi card on T14 (AMD) into some
| Intel WiFi one.
|
| Hope that helps.
|
| Regards,
|
| vermaden
| ggm wrote:
| Update the matrix on the source site?
| fl4regun wrote:
| So can anyone give me a short explanation on why someone would
| use freeBSD over linux? I do run it technically, on my router
| (OPNSense), but that's not a personal computer, like a desktop or
| laptop. What are the advantages to running FreeBSD?
| eugenekay wrote:
| FreeBSD will never switch to systemd. :-)
|
| It is an old-school UNIX experience, not great for desktops but
| excellent for long-lived "pet servers" where long-term
| stability over decades of service is valued. I treasure it for
| running small Web servers and shell hosts, instead of
| Debian/Ubuntu.
| icedchai wrote:
| Same. I've been running it on a "pet" server since the mid
| 90's, for shell, web, email, etc. I started on FreeBSD 2.x
| and has been through many upgrades and migrations! I also
| worked at an early ISP and FreeBSD was our go-to for email,
| NNTP, and DNS.
| mghackerlady wrote:
| it's just a good unix experience, some people like that
| sausagefeet wrote:
| I have a few reasons:
|
| 1. I subjectively just like it better. Things like dtrace,
| jails, the init system, just click for me.
|
| 2. I think it's good to not support a Linux mono-culture. Yes,
| there is Windows and macOS, but in terms of open source OS's, I
| think it's good to have more than one choice and so for any
| rough edges in FreeBSD, I'm willing to deal with them to
| support that goal.
|
| 3. I don't think you'll find any actual, hard, technical reason
| to want to prefer FreeBSD over Linux on a desktop. Anything you
| can do in FreeBSD you can do in Linux. Heck, FreeBSD is
| probably even running the Linux version (for example video
| drivers).
|
| But really, which Linux do you mean? Nix? Gentoo? Red Hat?
| jmspring wrote:
| CUDA gets into an area that I wouldn't use it for. My local
| LLM machine is running Void linux.
| josephg wrote:
| Yes; linux is generally supported better than freebsd. CUDA
| and Docker work out of the box on linux. Linux has better
| graphics drivers and steam support. Opensource software
| (libraries, tools) are much more likely to be tested & work
| properly on linux. I've also run into several rust crates
| which don't build on freebsd - particularly crates which
| depend on C code.
|
| But the comment you're replying to said there weren't many
| good technical reasons to prefer freebsd over linux. I
| think that's broadly true.
|
| I still really like freebsd though. Unlike linux, one
| community is responsible for the kernel and userspace. That
| makes the whole OS feel much more cohesive. You don't have
| to worry about supporting 18 different distributions, which
| all do their own thing.
| jmspring wrote:
| FreeBSD's development philosophy, it's aversion to design
| decisions like - we must allow systemd everywhere,
| stability, zfs and jails, consistent configuration (for
| decades) are all technical reasons I prefer it over
| Linux.
|
| How about Ubuntu and snaps? License needed for certain
| security updates, etc.
| fl4regun wrote:
| I use arch, but I don't see the distro as mattering that
| much. For the most part it just feels like picking your
| poison on which init system, what package manager you want to
| use, etc, but the end experience isn't too different once
| everything is set up. I can run steam on each one, they all
| have gcc, they all have support for the same set of desktop
| environments, they all have chrome/ff/whatever browser you
| want. At this point I'm just using what I have set up because
| the setup is what takes most of the effort, once that's done,
| it's smooth sailing.
| kev009 wrote:
| For the average joe there it's just an option and personal
| taste, and it comes with its own tradeoffs and learning curve.
| Well integrated ZFS would probably be the main thing for
| average joe.
|
| For developers, it is interesting to think of as a self
| contained toolkit. If you are building firmware, platform
| images for bare metal or cloud, it creates a much better
| demarcation than any attempts Linux can put forth. This is
| related to why you might like OPNSense. But if you are just a
| consumer it only indirectly matters to you.. consistency of
| build and product, quality of subset of network drivers and
| subsystems like pf to support your mission, ability go in and
| quickly and correctly fix the right problem at the right level
| etc.
| herecomesthepre wrote:
| If you want ZFS use Solaris not an ersatz system that
| imported OpenZFS code.
| jmspring wrote:
| Stability and security. It's a great server OS and I've been
| using it for decades.
| herecomesthepre wrote:
| It's arguably the best non-Apple/non-Windows system to use to
| order an Apple or Windows laptop to replace it.
|
| You might have to use an Ethernet connection though, as the Wi-
| Fi may not be supported.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It's different than Linux, and mainstream enough to be actively
| developed and used in production. For a hobbyist, that is
| useful in itself.
|
| It's a pretty rock-solid system, from my memory of the 2000s.
|
| BSDs in general are tightly integrated between kernel and
| userland tools. FreeBSD has a lot of modern concepts built in
| that Linux also has, such as Jails and bhyve VM hosting.
|
| FreeBSD has ZFS has a first-class citizen and in my sysadmin
| opinion, ZFS is one of the best filesystems ever created. While
| others dunk on BSD for "catching up to Linux" on certain
| features, BSD equivalents seem to be really well architected.
| ZFS is one place where Linux (btrfs) is only beginning to catch
| up. I just learned about bectl (Boot Environment Ctl) that
| makes snapshotting and rolling back the system partition of
| installs really easy, and ZFS-on-root is critical to that tool.
|
| For many, having the simple RC init system is a boon over
| systemd. Services that need started up at boot are defined in
| /etc/rc.conf, as well as networking and other core services.
| Editing rc.conf can be done manually or with the sysrc tool.
| EngineerUSA wrote:
| Anyone with a framework? I am considering it, but it is more
| expensive than my mac... which says something
| sausagefeet wrote:
| I am using it on a 12th Gen Intel (so a few years old), and it
| works great. I'm sure I have naturally acclimated and
| subconsciously work around things that I don't realize but
| suspend/resume works (I rebooted for the first time in like 3
| months today). All the apps, yadda. For me, it's great.
| grigio wrote:
| Too many issues with Wifi and suspend, a part that the usage an
| performance are quite similar to Linux
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZk6LTfqW30
| unixhero wrote:
| Ooh! I have lne of those T490 laptops. Except my wife had 1 liter
| of liquid detergent into it after putting a single bagged carton
| of it into my suitcase to bring on vacay. Great fun. The screen
| flickers.
| ectospheno wrote:
| I use a Dell Latitude 3550 on OpenBSD. Never tried the camera but
| I've used everything else without incident.
| sharts wrote:
| The funny thing is the BSDs would likely have better support if
| most folks complaining here actually used BSD for their infra.
|
| No, you don't need linux to run your python webapp that you
| actually tested on your macbook.
| jmspring wrote:
| But docker!
|
| I've been using jails/etc and the pattern with way I setup and
| configure my FreeBSD servers hasn't significantly changed in 20
| years.
| evanjrowley wrote:
| >But docker
|
| Maybe one day! One of the things that has changed in the past
| 20 years with FreeBSD is the addition of bhyve.
| Virtualization on FreeBSD was not great prior to bhyve.
| Because FreeBSD waited to implement it, they ended up with an
| arguably more modern hypervisor versus what Linux had at the
| time. Maybe history will repeat when it comes to application
| containers / docker images. Podman came 5 years after Docker
| and the result was better. It could happen with FreeBSD too.
| robot-wrangler wrote:
| Wow, searched this thread for docker hoping to realize I
| was behind the times and thinking surely it must work by
| now. It's so crazy that the BSDs have a reputation for
| stable, implying sysadmins and servers, then it won't
| support the one thing that every server needs. VMs running
| linux is the preferred path of least resistance then?
| Honestly you'd have to work hard to find a better way to
| alienate your target audience.
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